This deck's goal is to be a tempo oriented creature focused deck. It's strengths lie in being fast into the game with strong standalone threats as the game progresses. Many of the creatures in this build can threaten to kill players on their own or give us access to generate resources and control the board. This deck attempts to drop better creatures than our opponents while sweeping the noncreatures.
This is a guide to a creature focused deck with core concepts in card draw, combat, disruption, and lifegain. If you are not fond of the combat step, this may not be the list for you. While the roots and concept of this deck is in creatures and combat, it still has a lot of disruption woven in as well often when I can in creature form. It has been a very unique deck for myself in that it really does fit the mold for the definition of Rock.
Quote from Definition of Rock from MTGS Wiki »
Rock (AKA "The Rock" and "Junk") is a deck archetype that appears in Legacy, but can theoretically appear anywhere. A midrange deck at heart, the traditional Rock deck would play a lot of disruption alongside solid removal. Other features include Regrowth effects, sweepers, and card draw. Once the game is under control, the deck would play a big fat finisher to close the game quickly. Due to the state of the Legacy metagame, though, the deck has adopted a much more creature-orientated approach.
I have been playing commander since early 2010 (around the release of Worldwake). My background in commander tends to be a Spike / Johnny player primarily. I like finding strong synergy between cards but I avoid infinite combo and mass land destruction in my preferred strategies. I am sort of known for playing a lot of mono colored decks and a lot of white in what I make.
When Tymna the Weaver was spoiled I knew essentially immediately that it was a commander I was interested in exploring. My first attempt was with Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa paired with her and I tried using a bunch of small creatures with evasion to draw me cards. I did not really foresee that partners puts a lot more board presence to play and it takes time to get both partners plus other cards to play and that made the combo feel too slow to get in play and get other board assembled. I felt like I was walking into wraths kind of hard as well. The process of rebuilding post wrath when you have two commanders you proactively want in play is a very challenging thing as it takes time and mana to get them both back into play reliably.
From there I moved to Ikra Shidiqi and had less of a proactive plan to play Ikra Shidiqi which I definitely saw benefit in. With the new deck I saw more benefit in just having some vanilla beaters in that they offered a lot more pressure per card and my commanders act as anthems to offer draw and lifegain. So I was off and my first build was chalked full of vanilla beaters that were stat efficient.
Since then, I have moved to more creatures that offer control and or generate value over time being in play. My goal with this was to redirect some of the hate off of Tymna because for a while it felt like if people just had spot removal for her the deck fell apart. Moving to more must answer creatures it has really diversified what my opponents need to remove and it has added a lot of control to my list which has been great when combined with the draw and lifegain that my commanders offer.
~ ~ ~ COMMANDER CHOICE ~ ~ ~
With the partner mechanic there is a very real question of: "why run any specific combination of partners." I think there are a lot of valid partner pairings and while there isn't really a wrong choice, I think there are pairings that have better or worse synergy. To get things started I will run through what my partners bring to this deck and why I chose to pair them.
Tymna gives a creatures matter gameplan. Its important to have a curve of creatures and find a way to make them connect either through numbers, evasion, or removal.
Tymna gives a consistent small lifegain resource. Most of the time this life gain if she is connecting goes straight into drawing cards but the trigger of lifegain can trigger other effects.
Ikra Shidiqi is a very defensive play in that she is a good blocker and she is generally played in a turn that she will also give us a life buffer from attacks as well.
COMBINED:
Anthems - Both commanders function as creatures matter anthem effects. The reason that I like both of them is that they open up a lot of value and both work together nicely in that they make creatures and combat matter.
Colors - I was fine with three color but was trying to avoid going four color because in part I wanted to be able to curve early plays in and as you add more colors it becomes harder to have faster and earlier plays. Picking up green as my third color to pair with Tymna also helped me because it opens me to some tempo ramp which I found to be very useful.
Lifegain - both commanders had an overlap when it came to lifegain. Black / white has some effects that care about lifegain so I found them both to be nice with these effects because I am able to trigger effects that care about me gaining life a bit easier.
ALTERNATE CHOICES:
There are a few other partners I did put into some consideration if I did not find my partner pair to measure up:
Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder + Tymna the Weaver This would probably have been the next pair I would have tried if I did not like my current pair. Bruse Tarl gives some nice aggression and still he pairs some of the lifegain and creature matters strategies together. I think that Mardu is a little weaker color combo than Abzan but I think Bruse Tarl is more aggressive and possibly more of a proactive play than I find Ikra Shidiqi.
Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker + Tymna the Weaver When I was early on considering Ikra Shidiqi I also considered Ishai from the perspective that I liked the standalone threat of Ishai as well as the control element options of Esper. I felt like while Ishai is a good beater, it offered less to the "creatures" matter strategy that I felt Tymna played well towards.
Kraum, Ludevic's Opus + Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper originally I didnt really like Kraum but I have seen a few other people play them and I will say they have grown on me over time. My issue with this pairing is that both commanders are five drop creatures and this becomes 4 colors. I think this would be a little slower list aimed possibly more at being a control strategy but I think there is still merit in pairing a control based beater creature with the lifegain. I think this reminds me a little of the Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker + Tymna the Weaver pairing in that its a little wonky but the concept of the pairing could work.
Karador, Ghost Chieftain - I know its not a partner but its an abzan commander with a creatures matter strategy. Karador is slower and his card advantage comes more from being sticky than being fast or proactive. I think his value comes down to how much graveyard hate you see in your meta as games will vary between amazing to terrible largely depending on how much graveyard hate your opponents run.
Being that the partner mechanic has a TON of potential pairings I wont run through everything you "could" do as there are a lot of them. I highlighted what in my mind would be the directions I would consider and possibly think about if I were to ever break my partner pairing but wanted to continue with something similar.
~ ~ ~ OBJECTIVES OF THIS DECK ~ ~ ~
This deck has a lot of things its trying to do so I will break some of them down and explain the reasoning for them:
Tymna is my 3 drop plan - I essentially always prioritize her over any other play when I get to three mana. Due to this you will see that I have pushed priority to my two and four drop creatures and my three drop creatures I have accepted are essentially 4+ drops. You will see I went heavier on my two and four drops in part due to this because many three drops are a bit weaker when you look at them as four drops.
Play creatures, hate on noncreatures - You will see in my build I run a number of noncreature hate. Things like Fracturing Gust, Purify, Aura Shards, Bane of Progress, Austere Command and a few others. The point of these cards is to ideally have a value trade where I clear a bunch of annoying cards out and clear the way for my creatures. These cards have multiple purposes from answering defenses and Humility effects as well as to hinder opponents who are relying on toys as how they are going to win. This deck is a creature based deck so removing a bunch of things that we don't hold as our primary strategy to clear the way for our primary strategy is really strong.
Tempo - Given that I draw extra cards as one of my commander's rolls I built tempo style of ramp into this deck. I have a number of ways to put extra landsinto play as well as things like the moxes. If I can get Tymna into play faster it means possibly drawing more cards. When I am drawing additional cards each turn hitting people I can also possibly play more than one land in a turn which keeps me from possibly having to discard cards.
Control creatures with creatures - Whenever I can get a creature who can beat in and possibly control the board it is something I am interested in. There is always the question of how much the control effect costs though too as well as a question of how stat efficient they are and how much they can do for me for how little mana. Karlov of the Ghost Council is a good example of a cheap creature that offers removal for cheap mana while having a positive interaction with the deck given the amount of lifegain triggers just between my two commanders. Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief would be an example of a mana intensive option which I avoid given how much mana it costs for her to do her thing. I have decent card advantage in this deck due to Tymna so keeping removal and control effects cheap and effective is more important to me.
Landfall - I built a number of landfall effects into the deck. Most of these give me more bodies or more mana. Given the tempo role of this list I saw value in generating additional resources from something I was already trying to do (play more lands).
These were most of the concepts I went with while building this list. This list is in a nutshell a tempo style of beater deck. There is a surprising amount of control in the list though even though there is a heavy focus on utilizing creatures.
Deathrite Shaman it serves as ramp and grave hate primarily. In the early game it can ramp into Tymna which is very useful if you get it in an opening and and later it can deny graveyard value while also sending out 2 damage to each opponent in a turn rotation or triggering instances of lifegain during opponents turns for lifegain matters effects. Its cheap, its fast, and even later in the game it has decent reach and function.
Serra Ascendant its kind of a broken card in that its far too stat efficient for its mana. It comes online and it really wrecks people's life fast while giving us an early game creature for draw off of Tymna. Even later in the game it is easily still often a 6/6 for W with filying and lifelink given the lifegain this deck has.
~ Two Mana ~
Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim so this is a creature that early on can curve into Tymna drawing cards. What I really like though is that it always trades in combat thanks to deathtouch and later in the game it can easily turn into exile removal on demand which is really nice as it scales well.
Bloom Tender this is a strong tempo play as with just itself + Tymna in play it taps to provide 3 mana. If you dont have a second three mana play on curve behind Tymna you can attack and draw off of it. The turn after playing Tymna you can usually start powering out big plays if you want or have mana to play multiple cards per turn thanks to it.
Elvish Visionary its kind of silly to call this a filler card but it kind of is and it kind of isnt. So, any two drop creatures played on curve before Tymna in an opening game might end up drawing us additional cards. This creature is in here primarily as something that enables just cheap moving of cards that might turn into more cards. Later in the game it cheaply moves itself into play and gives an additional card.
Gaddock Teeg Gaddock gives us another great play that curves with Tymna as well as giving some great disruption. It is true that it disables some of our own disruption plays but in a lot of cases he can protect from wraths and or other big control plays. I usually find the fact that he disables my sweepers to be acceptable given that I often have a better creature game than my opponents.
Karlov of the Ghost Council given that both of the commanders here have lifegain effects built in he is fairly nice. Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper really plays well into his own abilities as I have often given him 6+ counters in a single attack thanks to the mas lifegaining that I can pull off with my commanders. He curves well into Tymna early on and later he turns into a cheap large threat that when left unapposed can control the board quite efficiently.
Lotus Cobra again it curves into Tymna decently and it can really do some cheaty things with all of the fetchlands in deck. The tempo ramp effects of the deck also play well with Lotus Cobra and landfall effects in general.
Scavenging Ooze grave hate and a beater who also has some small scale lifegain and self growing involved. The lifegain effect of it could trigger to generate other effects such as Archangel of Thune or Crested Sunmare which is also cool. It grows on its own so it makes it a good two drop that curves into Tymna but is still good later in the game.
Selfless Spirit it has flying evasion, it curves into Tymna well, and it potentially protects us from some traditional style of wraths. Its a good little beater and it makes the rest of our board more robust while being a good creature to curve play.
~ Three Mana ~
Bastion Protector given that we have two commanders and it buffs and protects both of them its sort of a nice card vs wraths. Even just dropping this as a four drop it really makes curving Tymna, Bastion Protector, Ikra Shidiqi potentially a good curve given the total stats and how robust it makes your board.
Eternal Witness Its a good effect on a body for a little additional mana. Generally speaking I primarily like this creature because of toolboxing. There are a few green creature tutors that are worth running and having this in the list opens up what you can access with those tutors.
Knight of the Reliquary given all of the fetchlands in the deck even as a four drop this creature gives us some fixing, ramp, and utility while also being a stat efficient beater. With having added Hall of the Bandit Lord and Gaea's Cradle to the deck I felt that adding this creature started making more sense.
Recruiter of the Guard I justified keeping this creature early on because it can always be sort of an Abyssal Persecutor at four mana in a sense since it can tutor and play Serra Ascendant as a four mana play but its also versatile in what it can do beyond that. If I have it in my opening hand I am probably going to make some sort of 4 or 5 mana play with it but I think it really opens up the later you play it with a lot of really impressive options in this list as a later game play.
Wayward Swordtooth given that I don't play Crucible of World tactics here I felt that the stat gain here was better for me than Azusa, Lost but Seeking's multiple land drops per turn. Given that I plan to play Tymna at three mana, I felt that without being able to play lands from the graveyard, the stat gain was probably better than land shotgunning since it seems hard to maintain enough draw to be trying to drop three lands per turn.
~ Four Mana ~
Angel of Condemnation I really do love the combination of a 4 drop with flying + vigilance. The activated ability offers potentially protection or disruption as well. I like this creature for all of the potential options of what it can offer us. I like where it falls in the mana cost and the combination of abilities work really well with a deck that can ramp mana and care about hitting people.
Angelic Field Marshal it is sort of similar to Abyssal Persecutor in that its a 4 drop flyer that is mostly here for its stat efficiency. The mass vigilance it gives isn't huge given the lifegain I can potentially get from Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper but it still has evasion and good stats for the mana not to mention giving a small benefit to my creatures.
Emeria Angel a 3/3 for four flyer is not that impressive on its own. This deck is fairly good at triggering landfall effects though and a bunch of free 1/1 flyers are useful for triggering card draw or using to chump block or add up to trading with an opponent's attacker.
Forgotten Ancient what I like about this creature is that it just kind of makes all of my creatures huge. You really don't need to play much more to the board after you drop this creature so long as you have a few bodies. This guy makes all of your creatures just ridiculous and since he passes his counters off every turn he lives he makes it harder to spot remove answer what he has done. I do like buffing up Tymna being that she is a lifelink creature but I also try not to overbuff her because I don't like it when people spot remove her either.
Odric, Lunarch Marshal so, I have a lot of creatures with a lot of vanilla abilities + stats. Its fairly easy for this to become flying / trample / mennace / lifelink en mass just given what effects are common in the deck and or on my commanders.
Oracle of Mul Daya given that I get my draw for the turn and then I later get to draw from Tymna, being able to play lands off the top of the library is like even more card draw and on top of that I get to play an extra land each turn.
Twilight Prophet it has flying + card draw + life syphoning + it curves nicely behind Tymna. The small bit of life gain from it also is relivant for some of our lifegain matters effects. This really nicely fits the strategy in that it gives us potentially more card draw while also being fairly good and strong in the beatdown plan.
World Shaper it really fits nicely with our fetchland plan, landfall effects, and it sort of gives a little wrath protection in that when it dies we potentially get a bunch of lands to play. The downside is that we dont run much for sac outlets so it mostly just runs along until it meets some end on its own.
~ Five Mana ~
Archangel of Thune given the built in lifegain measures of my commander, it quickly adds a lot of power to my creatures. It has more of an interaction with Ikra Shidiqi but it also has a lot of cool interactions with a lot of cards in the deck like Scavenging Ooze and Umezawa's Jitte can all give really nice buffs to this.
Crested Sunmare it makes really robust tokens and it protects those tokens. Unfortunately you can only get one token per turn but there are several options in the list that can gain us life during opponents turns as well.
Kalonian Hydra this card is great at just racing at people and asking them if they have an answer. By the time it swings the first time it is already really big and you really don't need to help it with much of anything. You can use a haste outlet or something like Forgotten Ancient with this and it gets a little better as well. For the most part, just swing for the fences with it.
Tendershoot Dryad this generates a token EVERY TURN (not just your turns) so in your average game of commander you will have 4 tokens by your next turn (three of which can attack). It is very easy to hit the ascend trigger when you paid 5 mana for a creature who made 4 tokens by the next turn (that's 10 permanents on average just there). It buffs those tokens very nicely and it makes a lot of tokens given any amount of time let left to work. Assuming you hit Ascend the next turn which seems likely it leaves you with 11/11 of attacking stat potential and it generates another 12/12 of stats every turn it is left in play.
Titania, Protector of Argoth it serves as both ramp and a token producer. The tokens that she makes are really big and you can make them off of fetchlands and strip mine effects. I generally recover a fetchland with her but she can also recover killed utility lands as well. Getting 10 power plus ramp for 5 mana is really strong and the fact that she can keep making more tokens given time is also gross.
Bane of Progress given the creature focus of this deck, this guy gives a nice sweeper with a body that is also tutorable off of a few creature tutors. Given that Green Sun's Zenith, Recruiter of the Guard, and Eladamri's Call can all tutor it as well opens up our options to get artifact / enchantment hate. If you find that the number of times you need this sort of effect are a little less frequent you can always consider cutting some cards like Purify for things like Chord of Calling to get more toolboxing and less of these effects as a whole.
~ Six Mana ~
Rampaging Baloths it is a fatty who makes more fatties. We have a lot of opportunities to trigger landfall with this deck and I like how much of a threat this can be over time without needing additional mana for the tokens. I like that this guy has trample evasion and the tokens he makes are big enough that they will probably require chump blocking to stop.
Sun Titan its very versatile especially with a lot of the high impact cheap creatures we have in this list. It can always recover lands as well to trigger landfall effects and or recover utility lands.
Woodland Bellower With a few of the bigger creatures like Knight of the Reliquary and Wayward Swordtooth in the deck this can give some utility and a big boost in size. This guy gives a sizeable body plus a versatile toolbox of utility.
~ Seven + Mana ~
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite its an anthem that also potentially kills off opposing utility and tokens. I like the dual purpose of removal and buffing that she does and the fact that its on a body with fast effect really makes it fit a bit better.
Avacyn, Angel of Hope really robust and a good beater / defender. I would't put too much expectation on her but if she sticks she is amazing. I think that each meta has kind of a different level of expectation of if she is going to live or not but ultimately I think how good she is depends on what your expectation of her staying in play for a turn or more. She is an amazing top end anthem if you can make her function for a little bit.
ARTIFACT
Mana Crypt its fast mana and it can get you moving very quickly. Given the lifegain elements of this deck the life loss of this card is mostly a non issue. The downside of this card is that so much of this deck is early game effects that have colored costs so Tymna for example is only getting one mana from this card the first time you cast her. Ideally this card gives you a play before Tymna at turn 2.
Mox Diamond its fast and it gives colored mana. Where it really shines is going to be in the early game especially if I have other 1-2 mana plays in my opener while ramping into Tymna.
Chrome Mox its similar to Mox Diamond. To be honest I actually like this mox a little more because I feel like it gives me more options on what to get rid of and it lets me get up to mana a little easier than the land discard effect of Mox Diamond.
Sol Ring its fast mana that allows for strong early plays. It is probably the only card I suggest for literally every commander deck. If you want me to run through the strengths of sol ring I can, I just think its kind of known.
Lightning Greaves this is a two mana play that essentially speeds up Tymna by giving haste. When I get it in my opening hand I tend to play in my first mainphase and just play creatures to move this to and haste at people for more card draw.
Umezawa's Jitte it has multiple uses between controlling combat, removing utility dorks, and it can even be useful for triggering lifegain triggers for this deck. I like that its somewhat cheap to cast and use and it provides removal effects for later use.
Aetherflux Reservoir this is a very controversial card for me in that I really dislike cards that make it feel like you out of nowhere kill people. I much prefer the slow grind of killing people over haymaker out of nowhere cards that just remove players. This deck has a TON of lifegain though so realistically its not unreasonable to say that it is very likely that in most games due to the lifegain of this deck you can use this card at least once. I don't think its wrong to exclude this card due to how it kind of feels like combo in some sense but I can also see merit in running it.
ENCHANTMENT
Exploration its cheap to play and it lets us push multiple lands into play / turn. Its great in the opener as it speeds us up and even later in the game it can be really useful in that it can move multiple lands we draw into play each turn. Its the type of card that rewards having additional card draw on a regular basis by breaking the rule of one land / turn. I also ran Burgeoning for a while in here as well but I found the difference between needing to get past end turn and discarding down was very noticeable with Burgeoning where as Exploration gives me access to that extra turn immediately which might allow me to make another play as well as getting it out of hand before my discard.
Sylvan Library it gives an opportunity to increase the value of what you draw in a turn as well as an option to dump health for more cards / turn. Given all of the shuffle effects of the fetchlands and search cards tutoring can help improve draw quality as well when you have access to topdeck manipulation like this. Sylvan Library also has good interaction with some topdeck matters cards like Oracle of Mul Daya and Lurking Predators.
Aura Shards I have slowly gotten more and more token effects in this deck and I have a lot of creatures as well as wanting to hate on non creatures. I have had this card completely shut down some players in the past. Its a very strong effect in that it can shut down decks that rely on toys to function until they can remove it but it can also be removed very quickly because nobody likes living through this card. I tend to try to play it when I can also trigger it very quickly after so beware if you think you can just play it out casually and wait a turn to play creatures.
Necropotence given the lifegain elements of this deck this is a great way to use some of that extra life and draw an unfair number of cards.
Greater Good We have a creature based focus with this deck often relying on some fatty creatures that grind up into juicy juicy card advantage with this card. Even 3 powered creatures allow you to filter really nicely with this card and we have plenty of sources of 3+ powered creatures / tokens in here.
Lurking Predators this card functions as both card draw and tempo. Most of the creatures in this list could be put into play at any time without an issue and so even though our creature count is only about 1/3 of the deck, that means that in a turn rotation we probably get 1-2 creatures into play for free with this card. That turns out to be like drawing and having excess mana to play those 1-2 creatures each turn rotation as well as sort of giving them haste in that you probably get them between your turns. This card is a must answer enchantment but it generates its value very quickly in that even if your next opponent spot removes it as the first thing they do you might still flip up a fatty creature.
INSTANT
Crop Rotation given some of the utility lands I have in here like Hall of the Bandit Lord it can make a strong T1 play. Later in the game it could get Gaea's Cradle as ramp or Yavimaya Hollow to regenerate. It could also be strong to go get Bojuka Bog in response to grave abuse if you want to run it.
Swords to Plowshares its cheap interaction for creatures. I ran some bigger more expensive spot removal before like Beast Within but in the end I felt like I was running enough noncreature hate that what I wanted was cheaper / faster interaction for creatures. There is nothing wrong with running some of the three mana answers in addition or instead of this. I just felt that this fit my needs a little better after playing this for a while.
Vampiric Tutor this is a cheap, fast, strong tutor for anything. It is very versatile and while it has card disadvantage to it, getting the one card you want is what makes this card strong.
Eladamri's Call its a cheap and fast creature tutor to hand. It gives a little bit of consistancy for the deck and lets you toolbox for what you potentially need. There are some creatures that fit certain opponents better than others such as Gaddock Teeg, Scavenging Ooze, or Selfless Spirit as a few roleplayers. Getting a fat 5-8 mana creature can also situationally be good.
Golgari Charm its very versatile between being an anti wrath effect, destroying enchantments, and hating on token decks. I like the number of things this card can cover while still being cheap and fast.
Fracturing Gust It smashes a bunch of toys at instant speed and it gives a little lifegain bump to boot. I like that its instant speed because there are times that I am ready to cast Purify but this card lets me be ready to do that but put it off to see if I can push a small bit more value out of it not to mention the lifegain attached to this effect.
SORCERY
Green Sun's Zenith It is versatile and the cost of paying one more mana for any green creature is fairly strong. There are a variety of green creature effects between token swarm, Teeg, artifact / enchantment hate.
Demonic Tutor its handy for that pinch situation where you need a specific card. Its cheap to cast and it can get anything.
Genesis Wave since I am not much of a toolboxing style of deck this card offers me the opportunity to take a bunch of resources and sort of draw + cast them in the same action.
Toxic Deluge its flexible removal in that we might be able to keep some of our creatures and still get what needs to happen done. The life loss is minor given the life we gain in this deck. It gets around most problems that might arise on the creature front.
Hour of Promise given how strong a few of our utility lands are this is a nice ramp plus utility pickup. Given that we run Gaea's Cradle it can be quite a burst of ramp beyond just getting two mana back out of this.
Purify its not the most ideal of these effects but I have found that I like having access to these cards.
Austere Command its a versatile wrath that you can position as you need. Being able to strategically sculpt it to remove the problems in play that you need gone are great. It can be 6 mana Purify if you want but you can also sculpt it to creatures as needed to remove a token wave or remove some big threat as needed. Its great because it is versatile.
Rishkar's Expertise it draws some cards AND it lets you tempo play something from hand. Given that it costs six mana and lets you play a five mana spell its like really cheap card draw in a turn that you might have played a 4-5 mana spell anyways.
LAND
Given that most of the landbase is just fixing mana I wont go through all of those unless someone wants me to.
Bojuka Bog it gives gravehate right now. Its a useful land with Knight of the Reliquary and Crop Rotation in that you can respond to someone dabbling in their graveyard by shutting them down.
Gaea's Cradle given all of the creatures and tokens in this deck this card enables some crazy mana generation. It opens a lot of the utility land tutor effects to possibly producing a bunch of mana as well.
Gemstone Caverns this is a great tempo opening hand land in that it can get you a faster start. The faster you get to Tymna the faster you draw additional cards so while it is a tempo ramp it pays for itself and later in the game any land drop is fine.
Hall of the Bandit Lord we draw cards based on hitting players. We also have a lot of room to generate lifegain effects so paying a little bit of life to be able to attack faster means dishing out more damage, drawing more cards, and potentially gaining life back.
Kor Haven given the lifegain of the deck this card is primarily here to give voltron issues. Voltron flyers can be a hassle so the ability to give them some grief can be useful assuming you don't want to just race them and see who is faster.
Scavenger Grounds backup grave hate. Sometimes if I don't need grave hate right this minute but I think I will need it its better to tutor / get this land over Bojuka Bog.
Strip Mine when someone is playing with problematic lands. Its not normally too much of an issue if someone has a maze but if you see something like Glacial Chasm, Cabal Coffers, opposing Gaea's Cradle that is what this is here for.
Yavimaya Hollow it can help vs wraths in that it maintains some of our tempo.
~ ~ ~ STRATEGY ~ ~ ~
PLAYING THE COMMANDERS:
Being that we have two commanders I will run through each of them independently as they both have different roles and I play they both very differently.
Role:Tymna has the role of keeping the deck moving by giving that consistent card draw that aggro / tempo decks often lack. Its fairly normal to draw an extra 1-3 cards a turn off of her in a multiplayer game of commander. I would say on average you are going to get about 2 extra cards per turn in my experience when she is in play. While Ikra Shidiqi is going to be the primary enabler for lifegain matters effects, don't forget that Tymna can also trigger lifegain triggers.
Play Priority: Most games my goal is to have Tymna in play as much as possible. When I get up to the mana to play her the first time in a game I am almost always going to prioritize playing her first over a lot of other things. Some of the few times I would avoid playing her as a first priority would be if my opponent has a means of easily removing her (aka Umezawa's Jitte + a creature in play). Outside of an oddity of someone having gotten something to actively kill her, my goal is to get her in play as soon as possible and start swinging and drawing cards.
Rebuilding: When you get wrathed, I often do not prioritize playing her that first turn after the wrath unless you happen to have a haste outlet. Its generally better to play other threats first when rebuilding because her small stat line and lack of evasion will make it hard for her to connect on her own the following turn. Due to this after being wrathed I often delay her a turn and prioritize something that can fight for control of the board or has evasion.
Role:Ikra Shidiqi gives two primary roles 1) keep opposing aggro decks from burning us down and 2) give us some great synergy with lifegain matters effects. If you are playing against a bunch of control decks and you don't have lifegain matters cards in hand / play I often lower her priority quite a bit. She can really make some effects like Necropotence very strong though in that she gives large life buffers to dump into more draw. Effects like Aetherflux Reservoir also can use her to fill us up on life to fire off and kill people at will for.
Play Priority: I often do not prioritize her on curve over other creatures from hand. If you run into a turn where you have mana but nothing to do with it she is a decent play but she is not a very aggressive play. She is more of a defensive play which is why I tend to be a little more reactive in when I play her. If you are going up against a deck that is aggressive or directly chips off life like a Purphoros, God of the Forge like deck then I tend to move her priority up some.
Rebuilding: similarly to how I tend to play her more re-actively in the early game, if I get wrathed she is likely not my priority play upfront unless I am being pressured a lot on my life total. You usually want to be casting Ikra Shidiqi as like your fourth or later creature unless you are running out of resources.
GENERAL STRATEGY:
Hit Everyone: This deck is somewhat unique in that while you do want to focus problematic decks down, you need to spread out your attackers so that you connect to a bunch of opponents in order to draw from Tymna. Normally for tempo and aggro decks you would want to focus down one player at a time and you still want to do that, but its very important to hit as many opponents as possible each turn to draw more cards as well. It might seem a bit odd but hitting everyone is a basic concept that Tymna really gives a lot of reward for so while it might result in killing people slower, it will give you more cards to play with and it will pay off generally as you will have more resources to work with.
Opening Hands: this deck has a TON of tempo ramp. I counted something like thirteen ramp effects at the time of writing this with a number of ways to ramp into Tymna or the follow up that comes behind her. Generally speaking I am looking for the 0-2 mana ramp effects as well as 1-4 mana creatures in my opening hand. The most ideal starts have some sort of 0 costing tempo ramp combined with a 1-2 mana creature in the hand. If you can get a creature in before Tymna and or get to Tymna sooner you are going to be having a better start.
Mid Game: focus on drawing cards, playing threats, and ramping mana. We have a lot of disruption as well so try to get value trades where you can and just keep pushing as many cards through hand as you can while disrupting opponents and or hitting them in the face. Ideally have someone you know might be a problem and work on sending the most damage to them.
Late Game: if you are doing well you can kind of stop worrying as much if you optimally draw as many cards as possible here. Start trying to drop the number of players off. If anyone gets a big board on you keep in mind that you can use the other remaining players to bloat up your life total with Ikra Shidiqi and keep drawing cards. If you get in a pinch you might be able to convince someone to not block a small creature to give you draw to hope to hit an out.
Overall, this deck has kind of the same focus through the game. Push resources to play, disrupt the opponent, and draw as many cards as you can. The fact that we can tempo ramp lands often puts us in a decent position if we get swept as we tend to have more lands in play than others.
WEAKNESSES
Repeatable Removal for Tymna: if you run into a number of things like say Umezawa's Jitte, Sword of Fire and Ice, Humility, or Pestilence to name a few that repeatedly give opponents the opportunity to take or or invalidate Tymna, that is a huge pain in the ass for this deck. I run a very high amount of artifact / enchantment removal in my list that are not reliant on creatures in part because you have to remove these things. MOST of these are non-creature effects and they are the reason for most of the removal that I run in my list. It't not the end of the world if someone can use a card to remove Tymna, we just cant let them repeatedly do that on the same card.
Combo: I don't play against combo decks that often so I have not tuned my removal and interaction to be built to play against it. I think you could improve your interaction against combo but... its tough to play against combo without blue or the intention to combo. If you are expecting to play against combo try to increase your cheap instant speed interaction via cards like Swords to Plowshares, Krosan Grip, and Nature's Claim. In general you need to have cheap and fast disruption and you need to know from the get go who is going to be the problem and run them down fast.
Mass Land Destruction: land destruction is challenging for my list in part because it is not something I play against on a regular basis. I think you can increase this deck's performance against it though possibly by using cheap disruption, lowering the curve, and running more mana dorks. It is possible to just try to keep the most dominant board position to keep them from executing their land removal and its also possible to run things like Teferi's Protection, Sacred Ground as well if it becomes a problem. We can also increase our mana dork count with things like Lanowar Elf too as another option.
STRENGTHS
Aggro - given that we have a very deep option to gain a TON of life in our commander zone, our ability to fight against aggro, tempo, and direct damage based decks is actually fairly strong.
Artificer / Enchantress - This deck is a creature based deck and so I have employed several effects like Fracturing Gust and Bane of Progress because while they can hit me, they hit very light in comparison to our opponents. These effects can take out mana rocks and defenses while leaving our own deck largely unharmed.
Mana Rocks - again, given all of the noncreature hate this deck has, this deck punishes those who rely on artifact mana ramp.
Vs Removal - I did mention in the weaknesses that constant removal of Tymna can be a problem for this deck. When I say that I think that this deck has a strength vs removal I mean it more from the standpoint that we have a very thick threat density of creatures who can spiral out of control. Our weakness to removal primarily branches from if someone preemptively sits on our face and keeps us from sticking Tymna. If for instance you were to play out Tymna and someone responds with Imprisoned in the Moon the turn you play her, its possible the game could snowball on you in a bad way (assuming you could not free her). Once this deck gets going I think that our weakness in relying on Tymna tends to fade as the game goes on but especially early on we have a lot more reliance on her to propel us forward. When I say that we have a strength vs removal, I mean it more in a sense that as we move to the mid and late game stages of the game I think our weakness and reliance on Tymna fades.
~ ~ ~ CHANGE LOG ~ ~ ~
1/19/17
This change was to get the list down to 100 cards as the original list was over 100 cards. cuts:
Well of Lost Dreams - it seemed too clunky given that I need to drop it with Ikra Shidiqi in play, then drop this and spend most of a turn trying to draw. Given all of the draw in the deck this just felt less fluid I guess. It takes a lot of mana and setup to really get it working. Overall when I was trying to build this I was trying for a lot of cards that work well on their own that get better with my commanders in play and this one just felt a little heavy in its setup for all the tools I have access to in Abzan.
Nihil Spellbomb - I ended up adding Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet to my list because he is good against sweepers and hates on graves. Given the addition of him I felt I was running a bit high on my grave hate with Anafenza, the Foremost and Bojuka Bog in the list too.
Polukranos, World Eater - he is good in size and I think his fight is decent. The problem I had is that he lacks evasion and I should be drawing enough cards that spending the mana on his fight should be something that I dont want to do.
Molder Slug - it felt like it didnt pack enough punch. There are decks I would love to have this for but it didnt seem like it would always be good enough.
Grave Titan - Honestly, I just had a lot of 6 drops. I came down to wanting / needing to cut either this or Armada Wurm. In the end I kept the Wurm for now because it gives two big bodies with evasion where as I felt like it was easier to chump the titan. They both technically come with the same power and the titan is better if you need to chump block but given I am trying to be attacking out and I have value generation on hitting players I wanted the evasion of the wurm over the easier chump of the titan. It was a tough call as the titan gives its own value over time but in the end I went for the one I felt would get in for damage to players better.
Demon of Wailing Agonies - it seems alright and I might consider it in the future. The trigger off of this guy is good but most of my stuff is just damage so I worry that its not enough damage on this guy and that it might just eat a maze and not be good enough based on that.
True Conviction - I love true conviction but I felt like it was a little more winmore here. Sure its a burst of damage but it doesn't give any evasion to my creatures so from that perspective its just like a consistant damage boost. The lifegain plus damage boost is what normally sells me on this card but here I have lifegain in one of my commanders so I felt like it was a little too dependent on me having a decent setup already. In the end I am cutting it for now because I felt like some sort of big overrun like Overwhelming Stampede might just be more in line with this deck but I wanted to just see how mashing dudes goes for now.
Necromancy - I love this card. I just needed to cut somewhere and most of the creatures I run in this deck are about equivalent so I didn't see how a situational creature is better than just having another creature. I am not really ETB or death based value so I felt like it might be a situation I could do without it for now.
Ghostway - I have a lot of anti wrathing and in the end I felt like it might be better to swap this out for Chord of Calling which I didn't have in here given that Chord can still for 5 mana give me a mass indestructible effect but is also less redundant than getting multiple of the anit wrath effects.
Siege Rhino - I used it last night.... it was ok... Overall its ok stats for the mana. It just didnt really feel like it was anything super special to me I guess. It was just ok and I needed to trim something.
adds:
Emeria Angel - 3/3 for 4 flying isnt so great but it generates really good value over time. It gives chump blockers or evasive tokens that can get in and draw cards for me. Overall I think this is a good for the mana evasive beater who gives me some good versatility. Given that I have some tempo ramp as well as actual ramp cards it gives some good options. I used this last night and then with Azusa I dropped 2 extra fetchlands.
Chrome Mox - I wanted to try a little more tempo ramp. Getting a faster start can get me an edge. Its also useful if I am drawing several cards off of Tymna as I can use things I would otherwise possibly need to throw away to ramp and play more things with.
Glare of Subdual - I have a few utility / token creatures here. I can always use my commander and drop opponents defenses. This offers both offense and defense options. I can also use creatures I am playing this turn to get my existing creatures though making it yet further to block me.
Chord of Calling - versatile card. Given the little bit of mass artifact / enchantment hate I run as well as the anti wraths I felt like this would be a useful card for the deck.
1/24/17:
Athreos, God of Passage -> Recruiter of the Guard unfortunately Athreos is not really reliably animating here and his recovery tool is accepting that I get wrathed. I think its alright but its not as explosive out of the gates as I want it to be. Recruiter of the Guard can be treated as if it were a white Abyssal Persecutor in that it can 2WW give me a Serra Ascendant into play plus itself. I think it has other great utility as well such as retrieving Selfless Spirit or Gaddock Teeg as well which seem good. It can also get me Azusa or Oracle of Mul Daya so it has ramp, protection, beaters all as options here. I like as well that the Recruiter is more of a 4-6 mana play than something I feel I need to do on turn 3 as well which is nice for an on curve Tymna if it makes sense to drop her.
Anafenza, the Foremost -> Scavenging Ooze I like the natural size of Anafenza but I noticed that she was awkward when not played on curve not to mention that if the game gets slowed down by blockers she has problems. She also seems less good when drawn later so with all of these complications I have chosen to move to Scavenging Ooze which I like that it curves a little better with Tymna as far as the mana costs. Scavenging is just more solid more often. I did end up depriving a Sidisi, Brood Tyrant player his zombies last week with Anafenza but outside of niche cases I feel like having Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet in the deck still gives me that option. I felt like there were more situations where Ooze made more sense than Anafenza is all I guess.
Armada Wurm -> Avenger of Zendikar they are similar in what they do but I just keep getting this feeling that Avenger is just the better card of the two. I know that Avenger fits this sort of deck well I just have a dislike for him I guess. Still, considering the similar mana it makes sense to make this move to something that just gives a stronger wincondition. I like the wurm as I think its a really cool card but for now, I think it needs to go.
2/6/17:
Cultivate -> Bloom Tender I had issues in that Cultivate felt like they landed at a little bit of an awkward mana cost for this deck. I often found myself being too busy for a 3 mana ramp. Its possible I move to more of the 2 mana ramp especially the ones that bring in lands untapped. Bloom Tender gives me a really sick curve with Tymna as it gives me essentially a free commander into play.
Kodama's Reach -> Knight of the Reliquary same issues with cultivate, I just felt too action packed starting at 3 mana to be casting ramp. Knight gives me a lot of utility options as well as some ramp options. I have a lot of landfall triggers in this deck as well which Knight goes well with.
1 Forest -> Yavimaya Hollow I realized my digital list didn't have the Hollow but my physical list did. It isn't something I feel I need too often but it does give me some utility options. I used it once to protect Tymna from a Shard Pheonix as well which is great. Overall I dont know entirely how I stand with it but as of right now I am ok with it. Knight of the Reliquary may increase my interest in my utility lands as well so I will keep an eye on it and see how it performs for me.
8/10/17:
Eerie Interlude -> Teferi's Protection I am running the Interlude as primarily a defense vs sweepers and I have been adding more and more tokens which makes it a little less friendly. Teferi's Protection when not factoring in ETB effects (which this deck has little of) is almost a strict upgrade for what I was using it for here. Plus, Teferi's Protection is a completely sick fog.
Dauntless Escort -> Angel of Condemnation Dauntless is never anything I really want to tutor for. It costs the same as Tymna which is unfortunate as it means its almost never dropped on that turn. It also lacks evasion so its not really a good attacker and I usually dont want to burn a tutor for it. Angel of Condemnation is new but what I like about it is its stats and built in static abilities for its mana. The flicker it offers could help vs sweepers but mostly I think in a pinch I can flicker out a problematic creature. Its kind of a well rounded creature and it gives me another evasive 4 drop that can serve as control if I need it. I am not totally sold but I have been fairly interested in it since it got spoiled.
Kothophed, Soul Hoarder -> Crested Sunmare sooooooo Kothophed has its moments where I go back and forth. There have been a few too many situations though where I start power drawing like 10-40 cards in a wrath that is getting a little too concerning though. I like that its an evasive 6 drop that can draw me cards I just wish it was a little less terrifying and bursty sometimes lol. There have been games vs token decks where he really backfires on me and thats what I am trying to shore up but cutting him right now. Crested Sunmare has been really cool in my Gisela deck and I realized that both of my commanders here have lifegain attached to them here. I am also kind of pushing a robust meatstacks wagon agenda here and I like that it protects its tokens and makes one quickly after entering play. Its sort of like Armada Wurm but with a continuous token generation option and the ability to protect its friends instead of trample.
Lurking Predators -> Traverse the Outlands Lurking Predators is such a cool card... but I have found it underwhelming when I play it in here in part because of the good card draw I have. Its one of those cards where when it works its amazing but when the next thing that happens is a Naturalize and you flip a land you just want to smash your face into the table. Traverse the Outlands looks really really brutal with the high powered creatures I run in here. I think it should be fairly normal to expect to get 4-6 lands off of it. The only concern is that I probably need to boost my basic count just a little to justify it. Sakura-Tribe Elder is currently the only basic land search based effect I have in the deck but I am also only running 8 basics in the deck. Its kind of hard to really do the math but even if we assume that 6 is really kind of the high end of my average result for this card do I really think I will have drawn into 3 basics already? I think I am probably close to the number where I want to be but I am also thinking about pushing my basic count by like 1-2 is something I will need to consider. This deck has been getting heavier and heavier into being like this gross landfall deck and I think this really enables a LOT of the sick landfall triggers as well as just giving me this huge resource advantage to move forward with. Lurking Predators I think really shines more in a deck where you are filling it with ETB effects and or possibly have some lack of card advantage that you need to fill in for.
8/28/17:
Avenger of Zendikar -> Avacyn, Angel of Hope so, I did actually have a really good avenger where I was able to play him and buff the tokens to being 6/7s in the same turn. This all said and done, I should have lost the game right after this and only didn't due to luck. My opponents seemed to all have a bunch of flyers and they just chose to not attack me. I realized that Avacyn could be wrath defense, flying defense, plus evasive attacker for me. Avenger is a little bit awkward for me still in that it seems like it either wins me the game, gets me wrathed, or loses me the game. I felt like moving it to something that might be a little more defensive might pan out a little better. Avacyn is definitely a target but at the same time I think its ok to have things that are targets for single target removal. My goal is to not walk into wraths when I can.
Surrak, the Hunt Caller -> Odric, Master Tactician Surrak has just been a little awkward the more I play with him. Tymna + Surrak is not enough power to enable his haste so in operners I have often found him a little less ideal than I was hoping. Playing my creatures in the first main doesn't work well with Tymna's draw either. I considered a few different options to replace Surrak, it was actually rather challenging for me to be sold on any one idea of what to replace him with. Part of my issue with Surrak though was that he didn't quite set himself up on his own as well as his lack of evasion. I like Odric because if his combat control kicks in he gains the power to run past anything I want or to force back blocks as I want. He will totally be a target but at the same time, this is the kind of deck that runs high priority targets. Taking a few high priority targets and pairing them with some fairly strong wrath protection is sort of my goal after all.
9/5/17:
Glare of Subdual -> Purify glare has had a few good situations for me but in a lot of cases I have not had the tokens to really take advantage of it correctly. I find myself kind of always wanting more ways to take out all the artifacts / enchantments and last week I ran into a Torpor Orb keeping me off of the creature tutor to Bane of Progress.
Explore -> Lotus Cobra I found myself wondering why I am not running the cobra here. I saw a little more MLD in the new meta I moved to so I am also kind of weighing in how I feel about that but in the mean time I do feel this is a fairly good change. The cobra can pick me up a good bit of tempo mana and it gives me something to curve before Tymna potentially to draw me some cards. I like that the cobra really picks up a lot of tempo with a lot of the land ramp / fetchlands which this deck does quite well.
11/2/17:
Survival of the Fittest -> Karlov of the Ghost Council - Survival has not been working out. I am intrigued by the fact that both of my commanders have some lifegain to them. If I could curve Karlov in on turn 2 he can draw me cards off of Tymnia and honestly if I can get someone to kill him instead of my commanders I am kind of cool with that. He can really snowball and act as removal when suddenly a bunch of creatures are giving me life as well.
Phyrexian Arena -> Aura Shards - I just all the time want to be removing toys and I have been adding more token makers so I think that the value of shards seems better and better. Both enchantments feel a little slow but its possible that I can trigger the shards a few times quickly. If I have like any other draw going I think phyrexian arena is a bit underwhelming.
Nylea, God of the Hunt -> Dire Fleet Ravager - Honestly, I have just been disapointed by Nylea too many times in this deck. I want her to be great but most of the good beaters already have evasion so it just feels less good.
Odric, Master Tactician -> Odric, Lunarch Marshal you know what, sure I will give it a shot and see how it does. I like that this version picks up all the abilities faster and some of those abilities (like flying) could be really strong to share out en mass. One of my commanders also has menace so its possible that could be a strong evasion to hand out menace + flying + trample... Seems interesting.
11/9/17:
Angel of Condemnation -> Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim - I do really like the Angel of Condemnation but I think it falls into my "only good on curve" sort of creatures. It could still be good later but its slow to do so given its abilities all require it to tap. Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim curves me in sooner which might possibly draw me more cards off of Tymnia which I think is great. I think its a good early and late game creature especially since I often have lifegain in here. I think its second activated ability will be very strong in this deck given the lifegain and being a 2/3 means that early on it wont trade and having deathtouch means it trades up. I really like all of these elements and the fact that it has a sac outlet on it as well means I could possibly protect vs theft with it as well. I think its a well rounded card for this deck and I can see it working early and late for me.
Doran, the Siege Tower -> Elvish Visionary - Doran is just so dang cool I was hesitant to cut him. He is a 3 drop though which means he is generally a 4 drop given my priority is given to Tymia. I think he is one of those creatures that I dont like as much when I dont curve him unfortunately. Elvish Visionary its really a small inclusion but it can curve in before Tymnia and possibly draw me a few cards plus even late, it cheaply cantrips. Its one of those style of creatures which is kind of a low impact add but because it could curve before Tymnia I think its worth including.
Skyshroud Claim -> Lightning Greaves - Skyshroud is just really kind of an iffy in that I feel its not ramping me soon enough but its also not ramping me all the much for where it lands. I think its better to just cut my losses as I just haven't felt that it hits my curve all that well. I am interested in the greaves from the standpoint that they could possibly give some protection to Tymna as well as giving her or other creatures haste could give me more draw. If I curve greaves / Tymnia it kind of turns greaves into draw in a sense as well.
11/14/17:
Managorger Hydra -> Forgotten Ancient - given that I am kind of trying to avoid 3 drops and in the case of the hydra, I would probably be playing it as a 4 drop I think that moving to Forgotten Ancient gives me a threat that I can really spread out my power which seems great. I could move the power off of the ancient and out pace blockers by making my commander and early drops big enough to swing past. I like that it potentially draws a lot of hate to the ancient which might keep Tymnia alive in that there are more than one threat to deal with.
Thalia, Heretic Cathar -> Bastion Protector I have been having an issue with Thalia in that she seems too dependant to get in the early game. She is a three drop though so again I am playing her off curve and she gets worse as time goes on. Bastion Protector make a great 4 drop behind Tymnia and given that I have partner commanders its buff can get even stronger later and the fact that it gives me some wrath protection feels great.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite -> Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist to some degree, I just want to lower my curve some. Elesh always felt a little out of place in this deck but I used it sort of as token / utility creature defense. I like that Mirri gives me a lot of evasion as well as also giving me some defense vs swarms. She has a lower toughness which means she could be tutored by Recruiter of the Guard as well. I have a small concern that her effects dont go active until she attacks for the most part. I want to try her out though as I like the concept of what she could do for me though.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed -> Archangel of Thune I am adding more +/+ counter stuff which is actually making Mikaeus worse. I really wanted to make room for Archangel which again makes Mikaeus worse. I am slowly bumping up some of the lifegain matters cards in my deck in part because I have so many lifegain effects just built into my two commanders.
Chord of Calling -> Painful Truths I feel like I am not really a toolbox deck so I wanted to cut a creature tutor. It occurred to me that Chord felt like the most expensive of the tutors especially from the standpoint of staring from the early game it just feels like it takes the longest to go active. I also dont have that many tricks to flash in as it feels like Selfless Spirit is about the only one. I think its important to keep some draw that is not tied to Tymnia and when everyone sandbags on her it makes life harder so I guess here is a bit more draw.
Beast Within -> Ulvenwald Tracker I have been adding so much noncreature hate to the deck that it feels like some of this removal for anything has been shifted more to like.... answers for creatures. I had been wondering if I could work tracker in here and I like a lot of what it can do. I kind of wish I maybe had a little more for haste outlets for it but I think it might also detract some hate away from Tymnia which is also good.
11/20/17
Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist -> Angel of Condemnation I ran into a situation where my opponents had bigger creatures than Mirri and it just wasn't worth casting her as this like one time evasion effect. I really liked the removal based creatures I added last time and I decided to try to circle back to a little bit of removal. I do like a lot of what Angel of Condemnation can bring to the table as far as disruption and evasion goes.
12/12/17:
Ulvenwald Tracker -> Stoneforge Mystic so, the tracker has been less good because as I was saying I bumped up my cheap creatures who scale decently of late and I noticed a lack of big creatures to use to fight with. I like the mystic because its still a cheap creature I can curve into Tymnia and since I moved to two equipment with Lightning Greaves I thought I could possibly bring it in.
Sword of Feast and Famine -> Umezawa's Jitte I wanted to pick up a little more utility in my equipment as I moved to stoneforge mystic. I like the jitte from the standpoint that it can play a lot of creature control for clearing small utility and tokens and just give me a lot of combat prowess. I do still kind of like feast and famine but at the same time as I have moved to more faster creatures I think I am ok as I am with more utility control over trying to drop fatties. Jitte also has some great interaction with some of the lifegain matters effects (Karlov of the Ghost Council, Archangel of Thune, Crested Sunmare) in the deck so I think its triggers are really versatile.
12/14/17:
Teferi's Protection -> Aura of Silence I have always had issues with these responsive anti wrath cards which is that they can be incredibly narrow in what they do not to mention there is a big issue in keeping the mana up for them all of the time. I do really love Teferi's Protection and I am ramping fairly well but I constantly had issues keeping the mana up to cast it. I think its a great card but until I get to the mid to late game I just couldn't really ever have it ready because I generally am trying to continue to push ahead with my mana. Aura of Silence is a little tricky but with seeing a little more combo style of cards I think its worth giving up three mana and a card to tax and slow down the combo players. Its also a very good card later on and the emergency spot removal is very key. My issues with the card are still that it costs 3 mana and that I wont ever prioritize it over Tymnia if I suspect someone is playing a heavy noncreature based deck its slow down effect is very strong.
Anguished Unmaking -> Swords to Plowshares I have been pushing up my noncreature removal so much that what I really wanted from my spot removal was more for it to be cheaper to keep up. I debated between moving this to something like Nature's Claim but I felt that my creature removal was a little more important for this slot considering how much noncreature hate I have in here. In a lot of cases there have been instances where a creature based spot removal would also bail me out of a lot of combos. Its not always true but I will give it a shot and see how things go for now.
Stoneforge Mystic -> Knight of the Reliquary I realized that I had an issue with Stoneforge Mystic and that was that I primarily did not want to cast most of my equipment on turns 3 or 4. In a sense the point of Stoneforge Mystic is to toolbox and act as card advantage but my issue was that for the most part I prefer just drawing a card from something like Elvish Visionary than to have a specific equipment to hand just because I would prefer to play lands and creatures sooner. Knight of the Reliquary spent some time in and out of my list but I think I am fine with it returning. The amount of power for the mana that it represents can be quite solid and I am adding a few more utility lands to the deck right now that might be worth fetching up.
Painful Truths -> Genesis Wave I did some considering of cards like Chord of Calling which I had previously cut and in the end I think that Genesis Wave starts to outshine several of these one shot draw tutor effects once you get to about the 8 mana range. My deck seems to be doing fine in the early game so I think that the value of just pushing more lands and creatures to play probably outshines drawing a few cards or tutoring something specifically. Painful Truths is a little wonky in that I really don't want to cast it early on anyways given how action jammed I tend to be in the 3-5 mana timeframe.
Heroic Intervention -> Aetherflux Reservoir I am trying to cut back on my responsive cards a little and move to a more proactive gameplan. I just had a lot of issues keeping up the mana for some of these responsive anti wraths in this deck given how much I am trying to be proactive. I honestly do have some reservations about adding Aetherflux Reservoir to this deck but I encountered it twice under my opponents control this last week so it feels a little silly to continue to not run it when I encounter it plenty.
Sunpetal Grove -> Gaea's Cradle I am not entirely sold one way or another on if cradle will or will not work here. I own a copy so I figure I should give it a shot.
Isolated Chapel -> Tectonic Edge I wanted to bump my nonbasic land hate a little. I am still not too worried about it but someone did drop a Glacial Chasm and I was VERY lucky to have had my Strip Mine in hand. Adding Knight of the Reliquary also helps on this front a little but I also think a second option is probably a good move.
Woodland Cemetery -> Swamp I wanted to bump my basic land count just a little for Traverse the Outlands. I don't think it needs to be drastic so I am just bumping it by one for now.
12/27/17:
Dire Fleet Ravager -> Angelic Field Marshal I managed to finally see the ravager and I guess I just was not impressed. He has the issue that the later you get him the worse he gets because either you are doing good already and he accounts for a small bit of life loss or you are not doing well and he hits harder but.... as a body he is not going to make your game suddenly go back on track. Unlike Gary / Kokusho he seems to get worse as the game goes on rather than better as they tend to pick up steam as you get more mana as you can probably abuse them. Overall I just was not impressed when he showed up. Angelic Field Marshal seems like decent stats and mass vigilance seems fine. Its one of those creatures I have kind of gone back and forth on a number of times but for now, I am going to put it in the list and see what it does. Its not that different from Abyssal Persecutor and the mass vigilance instead of the small stat difference / trample seems probably fine.
Ezuri's Predation -> Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite I have had continuous issues with Ezuri's Predation in that it seems like its very dependent on what your opponents are playing as to if it is going to work very well. There is a night and day between this card being crazy busted good and underwhelming and overcosted and it comes down to what your opponents are playing. I ended up cutting Elesh Norn a while back for similar concerns but I like that she is a continuous effect and I ended up adding a lot of cheaper and faster creatures since then that seem like an anthem buff would be strong with. I guess my own swarm tactics feel like they have come up since then and I have not been seeing as many clone / theft effects in my newer meta that would make me feel like she would be as punishing against me. I was considering putting in Noxious Gearhulk in this place but honestly I there are pros and cons to each of these three cards and I think at face value Elesh Norn lets me win most combats on top of removing a lot of chump blockers which is quite relevant on top of a damage output buff.
Garruk, Primal Hunter -> Lurking Predators as I have moved some of the fatty creatures to cheaper creatures and utility effects I have noticed that it felt a little odd for Garruk. I did kind of assess my other two cards similar to Garruk and I think I am still fine with the other two its just that Garruk is a little lacking for me. I cut lurking a while back but that was when Garruk felt like he was doing more and given the move to more smaller and mid sized minions I felt like moving back to lurking might be worthwhile. I like running cards in this deck that require opponents to remove them so I want to give lurking another shot.
Burgeoning -> Deathrite Shaman most of the time I have gotten Burgeoning it has been awkward given max hand sizes and that I cant push the lands into play now. It tends to fit better with a deck that is burst drawing a bunch of cards and pushing no max hand size with it. I just have not been able to get the same results with it as I have with Exploration so I think its time to move on. Deathrite Shaman seems a little interesting from the standpoint of all of the different utility it can offer me. Its potentially strong early and later on it can still trigger some of my lifegain matters effects, deprive graveyards, and push through for some direct damage to my opponents. Its nice that it could also ramp me into Tymna and possibly attack for cards early on.
Bojuka Bog -> Hall of the Bandit Lord so, I am hesitant to have too many enters tapped lands and I also was having some trouble with the decision of lowering my basic count or not to add another utility land. I think there is a lot of room for Hall of the Bandit Lord to be really strong in here as I have several creatures that getting a head start on attacking or being able to tap activate the turn they hit play could be huge. I also don't really mind losing a little life here and there so it seems like a strong option to push to go a little faster. I think the Bog is fine and its possible I bring it back in later I just think I have sort of a lot of grave hate right now with Scavenging Ooze, Deathrite Shaman, and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet all in here too. There are obviously a few key creatures who are going to be better with haste than others but I think the opportunity cost is not bad and its a little more proactive than bog which I think is good. Cards like Sun Titan / Kalonian Hydra / Archangel of Thune / Angel of Condemnation / Knight of the Reliquary / Tymna the Weaver are some of the ones that really come to mind for me as ones I would love haste for but I think it does go beyond that too. I just felt like making the change gave me a little more proactive feel and it lets me potentially be a little faster.
1/5/18:
Azusa, Lost but Seeking -> Wayward Swordtooth so, I struggled with the fact that I will essentially always prioritize Tymna over Azusa. I also don't run Crucible of Worlds or any of those type of effects to put Azusa to work the way she wants to be used. I like that the new dino gives me a decent sized body that I can use for combat and really one extra land drop / turn is all I should really need to get my lands to hand even with some burst draw. I think the raptor will fit a bit better as I had been eyeing Azusa for a while now as a potential cut since she really cant attack in for me so I like the concept of this change.
Sunscorch Regent -> Tendershoot Dryad the dragon mostly just gets huge fast. On the flip side, it also requires spot removal / a wrath to take out the Dryad but I feel like the expected growth / turn is much bigger with the Dryad and where the dragon feels like its only a problem if it comes after you, I like that the dryad kind of feels like a problem for everyone. I am trying to make a LOT more creatures be problems if they live.
Bloodgift Demon -> Twilight Prophet this feels like about the same card but for one less mana. The vampire also has a little bit of siphoning to my opponents and a little bit of a lifegain enabler pickup as well.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet -> World Shaper being I am not really toolboxing I have not liked Kalitas as much more recently. Its nice in that it potentially gives me some setup post wrath but I have just found him very niche / reactive to some decks for a deck with not that many tutors. I think moving to World Shaper gives me a more consistent proactive card. I think both of them are vulnerable to the same type of removal its just that instead of potentially having a few tokens post wrath I might have a bunch more lands and I think that is a fine trade off.
Elvish Visionary -> Crop Rotation so, I have not drawn visionary yet in this list. I don't think its bad and I think it could come back in later. Its more that I think that Crop Rotation has a spot for this list and I need to make room somewhere. With the recent add of Hall of the Bandit Lord and Gaea's Cradle I think I have a little more room for this card to be strong for me. If I get rotation in the early game, getting Hall of the Bandit Lord in play might in some ways simulate the effect of an early 2 drop.
1/10/18:
Sakura-Tribe Elder -> Elvish Visionary I was working on the OP and I realized that as I have been including more early game creatures in my list Sakura-Tribe Elder has been feeling more awkward to me. If it is something that I try to curve play I essentially do not want to sacrifice it as I would be dropping card draw for ramp that does not get me into my proactive Tymna the Weaver commander play. Later in the game if I topdeck Sakura-Tribe Elder it is also not super great and while its not bad I would rather topdeck Elvish Visionary later in the game and it seems I would also rather curve play it than the Elder. So... I guess in retrospect I am appreciating the Visionary over the Elder.
1/19/18:
Abyssal Persecutor -> Woodland Bellower I have been decreasing a lot of the vanilla beaters who dont scale. I like Abyssal a lot but if I don't drop it on curve I feel like it drops off kind of quick. Woodland Bellower seems a little more appealing to me now given that I have Knight of the Reliquary and Wayward Swordtooth fatties which can both result in a huge gain of stats. My targets in my 3 or less non legendary green creatures mostly gives me access to ramp, utility lands, grave hate, or potentially draw one. I am also adding Eternal Witness into the deck because I do think its valid mid to late game to have the tutor option to recover a card from grave. I have been reluctant to add it up until now because I really am not trying to be a tutor / toolbox deck but given I am also adding the Bellower to the list and there have been a number of times I wished I could recover a wrath or something I think I will bring it in too.
Traverse the Outlands -> Hour of Promise I have wanted to make Traverse work in this deck but I just don't have enough basics. I have also been moving to less fatty creatures and more utility creatures but I think the real issue is the basic land count. I cast this card halfway into a game one of the last times I played the deck and I only had like a single basic left in the deck. Given some of the sick utility lands I run in here I think Hour of Promise brings just as much power (if not more) but it bypasses the issue I was having with basic lands. Hall of the Bandit Lord, Gaea's Cradle, Strip Mine, Bojuka Bog, Yavimaya Hollow all seem like great options for this card.
Homeward Path -> Scavenger Grounds I still think Homeward is a good card but I have added a lot of board control creatures to the deck to the point that I feel I can probably overcome a light amount of theft. I also don't see much theft so it seems odd to devote a card to counter something that honestly feels like its been a long time since I had an issue with it. Scavenger Grounds gives me more graveyard hate without taking up much space. I just think its more likely that I want to have access to hate on graveyards than counter theft right now in what I do see played.
Twilight Mire -> Bojuka Bog I wanted to make room for Bojuka Bog again but I also didn't want to cut into my basic lands. I realized that of all of the lands of the lorwyn lands cycle I wanted to keep Fetid Heath because it fixes the best into Tymna on curve. I am not really sure why but I had at some point cut or excluded Wooded Bastion from my list. My list IRL had Wooded Bastion in place of Homeward Path but I decided I could cut both for some utility. I do have a small bit of concern bringing up my ETB tapped land count in the list but with all of these nonbasic land tutors I think I just need to make space for now and see if it becomes a problem.
Aura of Silence -> Eternal Witness I really do like Aura of Silence but I have also brought up my noncreature hate quite a bit as well. Aura is best played on curve and Tymna is going to be my objective on curve so then I am looking to play it off curve. Its a solid card by all means but with the number of noncreature hate effects I am running I think for now I am going to go away from Aura at this time. Eternal Witness is a creature I don't like in my opener but I like having access to in the mid to late game especially given a few tutors that can get it. I have had a few games where I have regretted not having it in my list and while I am still not trying to be an ETB creature deck I think what it offers for the creature tutors is worth having access to.
6/4/18:
Purify -> Pir's Whim of my noncreature sweepers I would rate Purify as the low hanging fruit of them. This change swaps the hope from aiming to get a value sweeper to something where I could curve cast it and even just hit a little bit of ramp from my opponents and ramp me. Given how many cards I have to hate on noncreatures and that this was my worst and about as hard to tutor as it gets (being that in these colors only black unconditional tutors can get it) I am fine with cutting it for something that might function similarly but with positive value for me.
Woodland Bellower -> Virtus's Maneuver the bellower was always a little questionable when I added it. When looking for room to make a cut it quickly came up as a potential. Virtus's Maneuver looks like a great recovery tool just in how much it does for how little mana it does it. I think that the overall impact to the board will be more to my benefit with this change and it will cost me less mana to do it.
7/16/18:
Angelic Field Marshal -> Resplendent Angel the vigilance and size of Angelic is ok I guess but I like the continuous growing threat of Resplendant. It really seems to combine well with some of the lifegain effects in the list especially with Ikra Shidiqi. I want to at least give the card a shot and see how it performs for me.
Odric, Lunarch Marshal -> Caustic Caterpillar Odric has been a little more odd for me as I have shifted a little more towards control based creatures. It seems to have a little more effect when swarming big and trying to be the aggressor. I was debating between Caustic Caterpillar and Qasali Pridemage but decided I wanted more one drops to try to curve a little better. Its really not that different from Reclimation Sage but considering I am trying to avoid playing 3 drop creatures I like that the caterpillar could curve me into more draw potentially.
Twilight Prophet -> Dusk Legion Zealot the prophet felt slow as all hell when I managed to play it the one time I did. I even revealed Avacyn like immediately afterwards (which is like the biggest drain option) and it still just felt..... awkward to play. Dusk Legion Zealot gives me more options to curve early plays and its a cheap cantrip later.
World Shaper -> Tribute to the Wild so, World Shaper just feels slow and like I don't have the right interactions for it here. The ideal kind of deck for it would be a list with sac outlets and that is not really my priority here. Tribute to the Wild is a card that has been growing on me due to its cheap cost and efficiency of removal even though I don't really get to pick what is being destroyed, its efficiency of removing potentially several artifacts / enchantments for two mana at instant speed has been solid for me in some other decks. I want to give it a bit more testing and see how it plays.
Virtus's Maneuver -> Anguished Unmaking So, I feel like I am kind of over Virtus's Maneuver right now. Its an interesting card but it just hasn't been what I need. I had cut into a lot of my spot removal but I think I am ok with recovering a little bit of it. The ability to deal with anything and exile it is helpful vs indestructible targets on occasion so I am ok with bringing some of it back.
Criminal lack of Spiritmonger. Luckily, it doesn't have to be terminal.
I hadn't thought about Spiritmonger. I am slowly trying to incorporate as many +1 / +1 counter growth effects in my deck as I can, so I think this guys might be a good contender.
Ok, first of all, its taken me a bit to organize myself with this one so I appologize for the unanswered posts. I ended up pushing this together super fast at the last second and making a few last second swaps as well as bringing the list down to 100 cards kind of on the fly so I had some adjustments before I played the game last night which I played this deck in two games (I won both). So before I get into things I will try to straighten out a few things in my list.
DECK CHANGES:
cuts:
Well of Lost Dreams - it seemed too clunky given that I need to drop it with Ikra Shidiqi in play, then drop this and spend most of a turn trying to draw. Given all of the draw in the deck this just felt less fluid I guess. It takes a lot of mana and setup to really get it working. Overall when I was trying to build this I was trying for a lot of cards that work well on their own that get better with my commanders in play and this one just felt a little heavy in its setup for all the tools I have access to in Abzan.
Nihil Spellbomb - I ended up adding Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet to my list because he is good against sweepers and hates on graves. Given the addition of him I felt I was running a bit high on my grave hate with Anafenza, the Foremost and Bojuka Bog in the list too.
Polukranos, World Eater - he is good in size and I think his fight is decent. The problem I had is that he lacks evasion and I should be drawing enough cards that spending the mana on his fight should be something that I dont want to do.
Molder Slug - it felt like it didnt pack enough punch. There are decks I would love to have this for but it didnt seem like it would always be good enough.
Grave Titan - Honestly, I just had a lot of 6 drops. I came down to wanting / needing to cut either this or Armada Wurm. In the end I kept the Wurm for now because it gives two big bodies with evasion where as I felt like it was easier to chump the titan. They both technically come with the same power and the titan is better if you need to chump block but given I am trying to be attacking out and I have value generation on hitting players I wanted the evasion of the wurm over the easier chump of the titan. It was a tough call as the titan gives its own value over time but in the end I went for the one I felt would get in for damage to players better.
Demon of Wailing Agonies - it seems alright and I might consider it in the future. The trigger off of this guy is good but most of my stuff is just damage so I worry that its not enough damage on this guy and that it might just eat a maze and not be good enough based on that.
True Conviction - I love true conviction but I felt like it was a little more winmore here. Sure its a burst of damage but it doesn't give any evasion to my creatures so from that perspective its just like a consistant damage boost. The lifegain plus damage boost is what normally sells me on this card but here I have lifegain in one of my commanders so I felt like it was a little too dependent on me having a decent setup already. In the end I am cutting it for now because I felt like some sort of big overrun like Overwhelming Stampede might just be more in line with this deck but I wanted to just see how mashing dudes goes for now.
Necromancy - I love this card. I just needed to cut somewhere and most of the creatures I run in this deck are about equivalent so I didn't see how a situational creature is better than just having another creature. I am not really ETB or death based value so I felt like it might be a situation I could do without it for now.
Ghostway - I have a lot of anti wrathing and in the end I felt like it might be better to swap this out for Chord of Calling which I didn't have in here given that Chord can still for 5 mana give me a mass indestructible effect but is also less redundant than getting multiple of the anit wrath effects.
Siege Rhino - I used it last night.... it was ok... Overall its ok stats for the mana. It just didnt really feel like it was anything super special to me I guess. It was just ok and I needed to trim something.
adds:
Emeria Angel - 3/3 for 4 flying isnt so great but it generates really good value over time. It gives chump blockers or evasive tokens that can get in and draw cards for me. Overall I think this is a good for the mana evasive beater who gives me some good versatility. Given that I have some tempo ramp as well as actual ramp cards it gives some good options. I used this last night and then with Azusa I dropped 2 extra fetchlands.
Chrome Mox - I wanted to try a little more tempo ramp. Getting a faster start can get me an edge. Its also useful if I am drawing several cards off of Tymna as I can use things I would otherwise possibly need to throw away to ramp and play more things with.
Glare of Subdual - I have a few utility / token creatures here. I can always use my commander and drop opponents defenses. This offers both offense and defense options. I can also use creatures I am playing this turn to get my existing creatures though making it yet further to block me.
Chord of Calling - versatile card. Given the little bit of mass artifact / enchantment hate I run as well as the anti wraths I felt like this would be a useful card for the deck.
I ended up adding my lands as well. I ran on a very hodge podged together landbase last night but I intend to fine tune it. I might make some tweaks to it yet as I work on it IRL too but I at least got a relatively normal landbase up there.
Whoa. What's up with the Brooding Saurian? Is it a meta choice? Or a trick I'm not seeing?
Normally when I build decks I build decks up over 100 cards. It ended up in my list given it was a decent started minion with a positive effect that could be fetched if needed. In the end its not quite stat efficient enough for me to justify running so I did cut it but if it had been like a 5/5 for 4 it might have gotten to stay. When it comes to green creatures, picking up unique effects can be strong as it opens some tutoring options. I have always felt it is an interesting card but it would depend a little on the meta and what is being run too. Currently my meta is running a lot of Homeward Path for some reason so it has been pushing people away from creature theft a little more which is a bit ironic in that theft really had not been a problem.
Criminal lack of Spiritmonger. Luckily, it doesn't have to be terminal.
I love Spiritmonger. I started playing FNM magic just after it had rotated and I bought a playset which I used quite a bit casually with my friends. That all said, things that I am fond of from back in the day are one thing but I feel like a slightly above statted 5 drop is a little lacking. It does not have any evasion or value over time so its just a beater who can regenerate which I have a hard time justifying in a 5 mana beater.
Its a cool idea but I think its a little lacking when compared to modern day creatures.
I hadn't thought about Spiritmonger. I am slowly trying to incorporate as many +1 / +1 counter growth effects in my deck as I can, so I think this guys might be a good contender.
Silent Arbiter / Dueling Grounds - these are interesting tactics if you are considering doing voltron tactics and such. I run Silent Arbiter in my Kozilek deck which I really like it there but I feel like Ikra Shidiqi is just a little small to really worry about sending her in unblocked. I am also going for more of a swarm with solid mass approach rather than sending in one or two attackers approach.
Alhammarret's Archive - its not a bad idea but I have been trying to keep things simple. Both of my commanders are already situational on doing something to get their value so I wanted to stay away from cards that rely on my commanders doing their normal thing to be good. Its a little winmore in that if I have my commanders out and they are doing their thing I dont really need to make that better but if I am not out and doing my thing then this does nothing.
I might steal Noxious Gearhulk as an idea from your list. I played with the idea of Shadowborn Demon and or Duplicant but both felt a little clunky. Getting menace and a removal might be worth considering though.
I ordered a bunch of cards to fill in the list last week (most of which got in yesterday). I am really enjoying this deck concept so far. I have a few adjustments I wanted to make before tomorrow and I am working on examining a few more options on cards yet too.
DECK CHANGES:
Athreos, God of Passage -> Recruiter of the Guard unfortunately Athreos is not really reliably animating here and his recovery tool is accepting that I get wrathed. I think its alright but its not as explosive out of the gates as I want it to be. Recruiter of the Guard can be treated as if it were a white Abyssal Persecutor in that it can 2WW give me a Serra Ascendant into play plus itself. I think it has other great utility as well such as retrieving Selfless Spirit or Gaddock Teeg as well which seem good. It can also get me Azusa or Oracle of Mul Daya so it has ramp, protection, beaters all as options here. I like as well that the Recruiter is more of a 4-6 mana play than something I feel I need to do on turn 3 as well which is nice for an on curve Tymna if it makes sense to drop her.
Anafenza, the Foremost -> Scavenging Ooze I like the natural size of Anafenza but I noticed that she was awkward when not played on curve not to mention that if the game gets slowed down by blockers she has problems. She also seems less good when drawn later so with all of these complications I have chosen to move to Scavenging Ooze which I like that it curves a little better with Tymna as far as the mana costs. Scavenging is just more solid more often. I did end up depriving a Sidisi, Brood Tyrant player his zombies last week with Anafenza but outside of niche cases I feel like having Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet in the deck still gives me that option. I felt like there were more situations where Ooze made more sense than Anafenza is all I guess.
Armada Wurm -> Avenger of Zendikar they are similar in what they do but I just keep getting this feeling that Avenger is just the better card of the two. I know that Avenger fits this sort of deck well I just have a dislike for him I guess. Still, considering the similar mana it makes sense to make this move to something that just gives a stronger wincondition. I like the wurm as I think its a really cool card but for now, I think it needs to go.
Strong Considerations: a few cards I still want to squeeze in but havent figured out how yet.
Knight of the Reliquary - I like the idea of a beater that gives me ramp and utility lands. I might have to assess what utility lands I run if I do include Knight. I like that I can use it to go get Bojuka Bog at instant speed as well.
Umezawa's Jitte - remove chump blockers primarily. Its nice that it can be split up and saved as needed.
Criminal lack of Spiritmonger. Luckily, it doesn't have to be terminal.
I love Spiritmonger. I started playing FNM magic just after it had rotated and I bought a playset which I used quite a bit casually with my friends. That all said, things that I am fond of from back in the day are one thing but I feel like a slightly above statted 5 drop is a little lacking. It does not have any evasion or value over time so its just a beater who can regenerate which I have a hard time justifying in a 5 mana beater.
Its a cool idea but I think its a little lacking when compared to modern day creatures.
I thoroughly disagree. Don't underestimate the 'Monger; He can fight every titan and win.
I thoroughly disagree. Don't underestimate the 'Monger; He can fight every titan and win.
It depends a little on priorities I guess. For the most part I am not worried about trading with a titan because I have more of them than my opponents. Most titans in this format are designed to be value over time cards as well so if they are blocking with a titan to defend themselves, I dont really care if I trade with it as most of them need to stay in play and attack to really gain their value.
I wont deny that there are upsides to the monger but he also has a lot of downsides which are primarily that creatures have scope creeped since his time. A 6/6 for 5 mana isn't really that impressive anymore. It has no evasion either so rather than beating titans, my concern is that he just runs into tokens or ETB creatures and accomplishes very little.
Keep in mind that your opponents chose how to block and thats the problem he has. If your opponents have titan sized creatures then they will use them to block whatever they can trade with anyways so its not like they would use a titan to block a spiritmonger anyways.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I thoroughly disagree. Don't underestimate the 'Monger; He can fight every titan and win.
It depends a little on priorities I guess. For the most part I am not worried about trading with a titan because I have more of them than my opponents. Most titans in this format are designed to be value over time cards as well so if they are blocking with a titan to defend themselves, I dont really care if I trade with it as most of them need to stay in play and attack to really gain their value.
I wont deny that there are upsides to the monger but he also has a lot of downsides which are primarily that creatures have scope creeped since his time. A 6/6 for 5 mana isn't really that impressive anymore. It has no evasion either so rather than beating titans, my concern is that he just runs into tokens or ETB creatures and accomplishes very little.
Keep in mind that your opponents chose how to block and thats the problem he has. If your opponents have titan sized creatures then they will use them to block whatever they can trade with anyways so its not like they would use a titan to block a spiritmonger anyways.
I won't deny it, power creep hit spiritmonger hard, but he's hardly "Unimpressive". He dodges protections, refuses to die, and grows progressively, whether chump blocked or otherwise. I guess my meta just runs more swords than yours, hence why the green ability tends to be more useful than not.
And for the record, I'm not expecting opponents to just throw their titans under the MongerBus, but merely a statement of his size and potential. He's still a very playable card and I imagine you'd get more mileage out of him than Kothophed.
I picked up a copy of Spiritmonger and gave him a test drive. I have to side with ISBpathfinder. The monger has it's strengths, but the regenerate function was less helpful than I imagined. Although he was trading with creatures each combat and coming out victorious, he was not taking life away from my opponent, thus I was getting no triggers on Irka or Tymna. I replaced him with Verdurous Gearhulk. The double green is more difficult to cast with my mana base, but the fact he can enter as an 8/8 and has trample means I still trade with the same creatures, but now I can get my trigger. Also I can drop the counters on Irka or Tymna, improving my chances of winning with general damage. I imagine this is how Kalonian Hydra is being used in Pathfinder's build. My K-Hydra is serving in another deck, but if Ezuri is ever retired I would put it in here as well.
Another good card to look into is Phantom Nishoba. What a great threat! Trample, pusedo lifelink, and it resists death in combat. In my build it is pretty easy to add new counters. That would be a weakness in yours, but you might still like it because you can search it out with Recruiter of the Guard, and it would fit into Avenger of Zendikar's slot.
I won't deny it, power creep hit spiritmonger hard, but he's hardly "Unimpressive". He dodges protections, refuses to die, and grows progressively, whether chump blocked or otherwise. I guess my meta just runs more swords than yours, hence why the green ability tends to be more useful than not.
And for the record, I'm not expecting opponents to just throw their titans under the MongerBus, but merely a statement of his size and potential. He's still a very playable card and I imagine you'd get more mileage out of him than Kothophed.
Kothophed might not be a widely played card in the format however it is still a 6/6 flyer for 6 who has card draw on it. If I eat a wrath with Kothoped in play I am probably drawing cards. If I play Kothoped and attack into chump blockers I am also probably drawing cards. So, its a card draw driven evasive threat that is efficient stats for the mana with evasion. That sounds sort of exactly what I am looking for in a deck like this.
Spiritmonger's ability to regen is also something that taxes its cost. Either you play around the option of regenerating and you turn him into a 6/6 for 6 as well as keep that one mana up every turn (kind of like an upkeep in some ways). If I were to encounter a wrath effect, first of all the wraths depend entirely on what they do and if you can regenerate at all anyways not to mention that you are looking at keeping one creature of many which means you will be rebuilding anyways or I could potentially draw a new fistful of cards with Kothoped. I don't really see any logic that makes me think that Spiritmonger makes sense over Kothoped at this time.
I picked up a copy of Spiritmonger and gave him a test drive. I have to side with ISBpathfinder. The monger has it's strengths, but the regenerate function was less helpful than I imagined. Although he was trading with creatures each combat and coming out victorious, he was not taking life away from my opponent, thus I was getting no triggers on Irka or Tymna. I replaced him with Verdurous Gearhulk. The double green is more difficult to cast with my mana base, but the fact he can enter as an 8/8 and has trample means I still trade with the same creatures, but now I can get my trigger. Also I can drop the counters on Irka or Tymna, improving my chances of winning with general damage. I imagine this is how Kalonian Hydra is being used in Pathfinder's build. My K-Hydra is serving in another deck, but if Ezuri is ever retired I would put it in here as well.
Another good card to look into is Phantom Nishoba. What a great threat! Trample, pusedo lifelink, and it resists death in combat. In my build it is pretty easy to add new counters. That would be a weakness in yours, but you might still like it because you can search it out with Recruiter of the Guard, and it would fit into Avenger of Zendikar's slot.
Verdurous Gearhulk - I did consider this creature for a bit. In the end, I think its probably a fine beater and I like the ability to shift counters as needed but I also felt like since I did not yet have a copy, its long term price tag probably wont hold up much so I might look into it a bit deeper before I bother picking one up myself. Kalonian Hydra is probably stronger in sheer force but the ability to move counters as you want could also be useful especially if you ever like Chord of Calling for it mid combat as a trick. Its a long shot but who knows lol.
Phantom Nishoba - I like the card, I used to play against a friend of mine casually who played the hell out of it. Overall though its a little expensive for what you get. It brings me back like spiritmonger, but again.... scope creep of creatures has probably made this a little obsolete. The fact that I also have life gain built in with Ikra makes me even more against it as any sort of argument of the lifegain becomes less relevant here.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Just a few quick deck changes from some things I have been thinking about of late. I am hoping to get more testing in with this deck as last week I was out sick and the week before I was playing other decks.
DECK CHANGE:
Cultivate -> Bloom Tender I had issues in that Cultivate felt like they landed at a little bit of an awkward mana cost for this deck. I often found myself being too busy for a 3 mana ramp. Its possible I move to more of the 2 mana ramp especially the ones that bring in lands untapped. Bloom Tender gives me a really sick curve with Tymna as it gives me essentially a free commander into play.
Kodama's Reach -> Knight of the Reliquary same issues with cultivate, I just felt too action packed starting at 3 mana to be casting ramp. Knight gives me a lot of utility options as well as some ramp options. I have a lot of landfall triggers in this deck as well which Knight goes well with.
1 Forest -> Yavimaya Hollow I realized my digital list didn't have the Hollow but my physical list did. It isn't something I feel I need too often but it does give me some utility options. I used it once to protect Tymna from a Shard Pheonix as well which is great. Overall I dont know entirely how I stand with it but as of right now I am ok with it. Knight of the Reliquary may increase my interest in my utility lands as well so I will keep an eye on it and see how it performs for me.
With these changes, I also considered removing Skyshroud Claim but I felt I was more ok with it considering its negative mana loss the turn it dropped was lower than Cultivate and Kodama's Reach because the lands come in untapped and it gives me more positive tempo for future turns rather than just a balance of ramp and card advantage. Cutting Cultivate and Kodama's Reach also reduces my dependency on basic lands a little which is good. I did consider some 2 mana options especially something like Nature's Lore where the land comes in untapped. Deathrite Shaman was also something I considered as a replacement here but Bloom Tender won out here given how much more of a power ramp it gave in comparison. I am a little less certain on the Knight of the Reliquery but I like that its got good stats as well gives me utility and ramp options.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I played this deck again last night. The game went well. It was a 4 player FFA game. I ended up with a Burgeoning + Chrome Mox + Skyshroud Claim start but I only had 2 lands sadly. I still managed to stumble my way into the game a little ahead of schedule but I never drew enough lands for Burgeoning to do all that much. I used Tymna to draw me a handful of cards to help smooth out my early game and I got a Kalonian Hydra into play. After the Kalonian I dropped some other creatures and swing to put it at an 8/8. One of the hug / fort decks played a Tragic Arrogance as a Jund player was going after him aggressively. For whatever reason because I didn't care what he was doing he left my Kalonian alone which I graced him with one turn of not attacking him and rolling random to see where it went other than his way. The hug player also leaves the mono red Kumano, Master Yamabushi deck with a gauntlet of power + Gratuitious Violence. I end up casting Fracturing Gust which also takes down a lot of the hug deck's defenses. (yes the hug deck did leave Kumano and I set up fairly well as the Jund player was specifically trying to kill him).
The Jund deck tutored Pernicious Deed and kept 5 mana up for it. I ended up swinging my creatures other than Kalonian at him because the mono red deck had a Mystifying Maze in play that I intended to deal with the next turn. The jund player popped the deed for 5 and I Heroic Interventioned through it. The jund player and mono red player scoop here. It is down to me and the hug player. I play a Knight of the Reliquery and am sitting on like 80 life.
Overall, it was a fast game where it ended probably somewhere around turn 8 or 9 in about a half hour. The deck is doing well. I might consider a second Strip Mine effect and or possibly something like Acidic Slime where I can tutor up a target land removal if and when I want. Mystifying Maze against Kalonian Hydra is kind of rough but again, most of my deck does not get caught by things like that so I might just worry less about it. I did have a brief thought of adding Wolfir Silverheart as an option for some defense for Tymna as later in the game I had some concerns about the low toughness on her. It might also just be me over thinking things though so for now I just wont worry about it until I can get more testing in.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Seems like you have alot of synergy to look at adding The Hypnofrog
My choice of cut would be Kalemne's Captain
Dont see you having 7 mana to dump into its ability, as good as its effect would be.
Seems like you have alot of synergy to look at adding The Hypnofrog
My choice of cut would be Kalemne's Captain
Dont see you having 7 mana to dump into its ability, as good as its effect would be.
The Gitrog Monster I like the extra land drops a turn and the potential to draw but I often dont have enough lands to really be dropping them or I will just kind of maintain my land count. I feel like I would want Crucible of Worlds / Life from the Loam in here before I would really justify it for myself. Its possible that I should be running Crucible considering how many "extra" land drops a turn I do run but I feel like Gitrog is still a ways out. I also have some issue with the fact that he lacks any evasion (I guess deathtouch...)
Kalemne's Captain - its ok. I used the monstrosity once already and it was alright. I think the more likely thing is I should probably cut it for Survival of the Fittest which still preserves it somewhat in Bane of Progress being in my list. I feel like there are a few toolbox cards that I probably should have though too with Survival.
I will have to mull a few things over. I think Gitrog could fit but I feel like I would want to be seeing more draw or more land recursion effects before I went there. There is definitely a lot of synergy for him in here but I also am concered about my overall land count as in a lot of cases I struggle to maintain enough draw to really output a lot of lands a turn on a normal basis. Some of it is also that I need to test more and see what is and is not working. I only have 3 games of testing in so far.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Following our impassioned debate concerning the validity of Spiritmonger, I went and looked for better things at similar mana costs. I've come up with Loxodon hierarch and Sigarda, Heron's Grace. Both are fairly stat efficient with some bonus, hierarch being Wrath insurance in dude form (barring *** and Damnation) and Sigarda makes expendable tokens and gives you incidental combo protection.
Been playing with this deck a bit more. Its really really solid and its speed really messes with a lot of people in my meta which I enjoy.
Kalemne's Captain -> Survival of the Fittest The captain is really slow and Survival can always fetch me up Bane of Progress or Serra Ascendant so I feel like it gives me better versatility in what I would want from the captain.
Knight of the Reliquary -> Managorger Hydra honestly, I forgot that Managorger Hydra was a card until somewhat recently when I was helping someone with another deck and we discussed it. It should be another good solid aggro add for the deck. The Knight still seems decent to me but I think the Hydra is going to pick up a lot faster and snowball bigger. The Knight could come back in later but I wanted to make room for the Hydra for now.
I was looking at Amonkhet for this deck and I thought it may be worth considering a few cards:
Oketra the True I think the trigger is doable and it hits farily good. Being a 4 drop it should curve between my commanders or at least in after Tymna decently but the question is if I have a 1-2 drop because with just Tymna it cant attack on curve which is unfortunate. Its triggered ability is also really not ideal for this deck.
Harvest Season it seems like it could be good ramp but its winmore at best. It ramps me after I have several creatures in and attacking. Well.... thats interesting but its only really good if I am doing well so I think I am going to pass. It could still be good in the right deck like say a token deck that can produce tokens based on a mana cost.
Rhonas the Indomitable I think the trigger is very doable in this deck but being a 3 drop it interferes some with Tymna which is a little bit of a problem. Its activated ability is nice and its size is good too but I have concerns with it being essentially a 4 drop because I dont see myself dropping it over Tymna.
I think the new gods are kind of interesting but in general they seem a little slower due to their indestructibility so I think I will pass on them for faster and more explosive creatures.
Following our impassioned debate concerning the validity of Spiritmonger, I went and looked for better things at similar mana costs. I've come up with Loxodon hierarch and Sigarda, Heron's Grace. Both are fairly stat efficient with some bonus, hierarch being Wrath insurance in dude form (barring *** and Damnation) and Sigarda makes expendable tokens and gives you incidental combo protection.
Sorry about the delay, I think in general it may be better to be a little lighter on the number of protection outlets in case they are the wrong options for what your opponents have. Depending on the meta though it could probably go up based on the amount of wraths you see. I think its better to be bluffing that you have one though than to have 3 in hand at one time. Sometimes the bluff of having one is just as effective.
There is also some fall off of these effects as you increase their number within your creatures as to some extent the creature tutors can go and get them if need be but your third and fourth line options start to have diminishing return. I know that I almost always aim for Selfless Spirit over Dauntless Escort because of the flying evasion could net draw me some additional cards off of Tymna. When you start looking at 3-5 creature targets for defenses I feel like it would just increase the case of this happening where you dont find yourself wanting some of them as much.
Sapling of Colfenor looks pretty solid here as it does a lot of things you want out of a creature, even if it's not really great at any of them. Puppeteer Clique is another strong evasive creature.
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You would never guess, at the terrifying sight of the man, that Hunding was as charming a companion as one could wish for.
Sapling of Colfenor looks pretty solid here as it does a lot of things you want out of a creature, even if it's not really great at any of them. Puppeteer Clique is another strong evasive creature.
Sapling of Colfenor - it could work from the perspective that it draws cards and is robust but its ability to draw as well as its ability to swing in are both underwhelming to me. Assuming I am drawing normal and or have not factored in thinning, less than 1/3 of the time will the top card of my library be a creature. I would normally want a more aggressive clock or something more consistent in card advantage than what it is offering.
Puppeteer Clique - in a lot of ways I could see this working. I really do love this card but my meta has been running a lot more really wierd niche decks of late which often have less staple ETB effects. This creature is also slower to get going as you really dont want it in an opening hand as it can be slow to actually get targets for. I think its a good suggestion, its just a little slower than I was aiming for right now with this deck as really Clique is more of a mid to late game value sort of creature from my experience where as I am trying to be an explosive tempo aggro deck with this build. I think if I were having less success with being a tempo aggro deck with this then it would become better for me but as things stand I have been snowballing games a lot starting from early turns with this.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I am kind of playing catchup for Hour of Devistation / looking at some of the new cards here. I had been working on some adjustments I wanted to do to catch up from Hour of Devistation so I figured I might go ahead and make some changes based on the upcoming commander set while I am at it and probably just make those changes when the cards come in.
DECK CHANGES:
Eerie Interlude -> Teferi's Protection I am running the Interlude as primarily a defense vs sweepers and I have been adding more and more tokens which makes it a little less friendly. Teferi's Protection when not factoring in ETB effects (which this deck has little of) is almost a strict upgrade for what I was using it for here. Plus, Teferi's Protection is a completely sick fog.
Dauntless Escort -> Angel of Condemnation Dauntless is never anything I really want to tutor for. It costs the same as Tymna which is unfortunate as it means its almost never dropped on that turn. It also lacks evasion so its not really a good attacker and I usually dont want to burn a tutor for it. Angel of Condemnation is new but what I like about it is its stats and built in static abilities for its mana. The flicker it offers could help vs sweepers but mostly I think in a pinch I can flicker out a problematic creature. Its kind of a well rounded creature and it gives me another evasive 4 drop that can serve as control if I need it. I am not totally sold but I have been fairly interested in it since it got spoiled.
Kothophed, Soul Hoarder -> Crested Sunmare sooooooo Kothophed has its moments where I go back and forth. There have been a few too many situations though where I start power drawing like 10-40 cards in a wrath that is getting a little too concerning though. I like that its an evasive 6 drop that can draw me cards I just wish it was a little less terrifying and bursty sometimes lol. There have been games vs token decks where he really backfires on me and thats what I am trying to shore up but cutting him right now. Crested Sunmare has been really cool in my Gisela deck and I realized that both of my commanders here have lifegain attached to them here. I am also kind of pushing a robust meatstacks wagon agenda here and I like that it protects its tokens and makes one quickly after entering play. Its sort of like Armada Wurm but with a continuous token generation option and the ability to protect its friends instead of trample.
Lurking Predators -> Traverse the Outlands Lurking Predators is such a cool card... but I have found it underwhelming when I play it in here in part because of the good card draw I have. Its one of those cards where when it works its amazing but when the next thing that happens is a Naturalize and you flip a land you just want to smash your face into the table. Traverse the Outlands looks really really brutal with the high powered creatures I run in here. I think it should be fairly normal to expect to get 4-6 lands off of it. The only concern is that I probably need to boost my basic count just a little to justify it. Sakura-Tribe Elder is currently the only basic land search based effect I have in the deck but I am also only running 8 basics in the deck. Its kind of hard to really do the math but even if we assume that 6 is really kind of the high end of my average result for this card do I really think I will have drawn into 3 basics already? I think I am probably close to the number where I want to be but I am also thinking about pushing my basic count by like 1-2 is something I will need to consider. This deck has been getting heavier and heavier into being like this gross landfall deck and I think this really enables a LOT of the sick landfall triggers as well as just giving me this huge resource advantage to move forward with. Lurking Predators I think really shines more in a deck where you are filling it with ETB effects and or possibly have some lack of card advantage that you need to fill in for.
Anyways, I will keep thinking a little on my basic land count because of Traverse the Outlands. As odd as it is, I am also giving some thought in cutting Phyrexian Arena here in part because its slow over time draw as well as where its mana to play is. Right now I think its ok but its something I am keeping my eye on.
Honorable Mentions:
Majestic Myriarch Assuming I have Tymna out its already a 4/4 lifelink creature. The biggest fear I have for this creature is just how much time it takes to get up and running. Sure, it seems great to think of the situations it might be like a 10/10+ flying lifelinker with menace. I am conflicted on it because I see a lot of promise in it but I also fear how much time it would take to get it up and running.
Razaketh, the Foulblooded I kept thinking about it as an 8/8 for 8 flying trample which is all like super groovy but its mana cost just didnt make sense for me. It is a great creature no doubt but I want to be in play doing things sooner than that and its immediate impact given its mana cost just didnt make sense to me. The tutors sound great but at the same time other than a few token producers I dont really want to sacrifice most of what I am playing and there isnt 1 thing I want most of the time other than perhaps like wrath protection as someone casts a wrath. Most of the cost of this creature is in the power of its ability and I just couldnt justify it right now to myself as being worth the mana. Elesh Norn for instance is something I run at 7 mana but its immediate impact is enormous in comparison. This guy felt like a value over time reanimation target / creature abuse engine than a beater to me. Rune-Scarred Demon kind of started making more sense to me than this guy after more thought but I dont even want that so I am just at the point where I am cool without this.
Scavenger Grounds Grave hate is great, I just only have so many slots for utility lands. It might still be something I consider though.
Torment of Hailfire I like how its sort of hand hate / board hate / life total pressure all in one. In the end though, its kind of a lot of mana before it makes sense and I dont want to hold onto it that long.
The deck has been playing well recently. I played a game with it two weeks back where it ended up being a 6 player FFA. I probably should have ended up loosing the game given that I stumbled on my early turns and I misinterpreted an effect that an opponent had which had me tutor differently than I otherwise would have. Ultimately though the deck seems to be running well still and the new Commander 2017 cards should be in today so I am a little bit eager to play this deck again given the cards it got. I had a few adjustments I wanted to make as well while I was thinking about things:
DECK CHANGES:
Avenger of Zendikar -> Avacyn, Angel of Hope so, I did actually have a really good avenger where I was able to play him and buff the tokens to being 6/7s in the same turn. This all said and done, I should have lost the game right after this and only didn't due to luck. My opponents seemed to all have a bunch of flyers and they just chose to not attack me. I realized that Avacyn could be wrath defense, flying defense, plus evasive attacker for me. Avenger is a little bit awkward for me still in that it seems like it either wins me the game, gets me wrathed, or loses me the game. I felt like moving it to something that might be a little more defensive might pan out a little better. Avacyn is definitely a target but at the same time I think its ok to have things that are targets for single target removal. My goal is to not walk into wraths when I can.
Surrak, the Hunt Caller -> Odric, Master Tactician Surrak has just been a little awkward the more I play with him. Tymna + Surrak is not enough power to enable his haste so in operners I have often found him a little less ideal than I was hoping. Playing my creatures in the first main doesn't work well with Tymna's draw either. I considered a few different options to replace Surrak, it was actually rather challenging for me to be sold on any one idea of what to replace him with. Part of my issue with Surrak though was that he didn't quite set himself up on his own as well as his lack of evasion. I like Odric because if his combat control kicks in he gains the power to run past anything I want or to force back blocks as I want. He will totally be a target but at the same time, this is the kind of deck that runs high priority targets. Taking a few high priority targets and pairing them with some fairly strong wrath protection is sort of my goal after all.
The replacement for Surrak is one that I am a little less confident but I do know that I was having some issues with him so I am fine with just kind of seeing how it pans out.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
The deck is playing very well. I am really drawing some hate of late but still I love this deck. I had a few changes I wanted to push through because I think it will help some of the performance of the deck. I hit up a new meta since moving and they play a lot less creature tactics so in part of that I am trying to bring up my noncreature hate a little.
DECK CHANGE:
Glare of Subdual -> Purify glare has had a few good situations for me but in a lot of cases I have not had the tokens to really take advantage of it correctly. I find myself kind of always wanting more ways to take out all the artifacts / enchantments and last week I ran into a Torpor Orb keeping me off of the creature tutor to Bane of Progress.
Explore -> Lotus Cobra I found myself wondering why I am not running the cobra here. I saw a little more MLD in the new meta I moved to so I am also kind of weighing in how I feel about that but in the mean time I do feel this is a fairly good change. The cobra can pick me up a good bit of tempo mana and it gives me something to curve before Tymna potentially to draw me some cards. I like that the cobra really picks up a lot of tempo with a lot of the land ramp / fetchlands which this deck does quite well.
The new meta still has some creature based strategies but it feels like there are a lot less creatures. I ran into a bit of removal as it seems they are fond of Oblivion Ring effects in the new meta I felt like bumping my noncreature hate up a little will pay off well. I am not sure what my plan is right now for not getting Armageddoned but its possible I just put more priority in Gaddock Teeg or its also possible I consider adding Aura Shards to this deck.
Have you considered Herald of the Host? It has evasion and attacks all opponent's simultaneously. In that light, Blade of Selves for additional M(yri)adness seems like a good inclusion. You get to draw more cards and gain more life so it synergizes really well with both your commanders.
Also, would Odric, Lunarch Marshall not be better than Odric, Master Tactician? I know the latter helps connect slightly better by guaranteeing no blocks, but the former also helps out on the defense (and gives your commander's lifelink + menace to each creature).
As far as efficient beaters go, why are you not running Sigarda, Host of Herons? I would argue she can replace Sunscorch Regent in a pinch AND protects your board from sacrifice effects.
Additionally, if MLD is giving you problems you could run Sacred Ground and/or Ramunap Excavator and/or Crucible of Worlds as a meta call though they don't do that much on their own.... unless you add some MLD too.
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The secret to enjoyable Commander games is not winning first, but losing last.
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
So, I guess I should appologize in the time it took me to reply. I have had a lot of EDH projects that took off and sort of took over as well. I have been logging a lot of time and effort into my Edgar Markov list of late but I still REALLY love this deck too. Oddly enough my vampire deck took a similar direction to my strategy here but possibly to an even larger extreme and it has taken a lot of my focus of late. I have also been building a lot of new decks and the maintenance on a lot of my old decks as well and somewhere in there I gave this list a little less focus for a bit. I am fine with that but I do love this list so I want to give it some love here too.
Have you considered Herald of the Host? It has evasion and attacks all opponent's simultaneously. In that light, Blade of Selves for additional M(yri)adness seems like a good inclusion. You get to draw more cards and gain more life so it synergizes really well with both your commanders.
Also, would Odric, Lunarch Marshall not be better than Odric, Master Tactician? I know the latter helps connect slightly better by guaranteeing no blocks, but the former also helps out on the defense (and gives your commander's lifelink + menace to each creature).
As far as efficient beaters go, why are you not running Sigarda, Host of Herons? I would argue she can replace Sunscorch Regent in a pinch AND protects your board from sacrifice effects.
Herald of the Host / Blade of Selves - I have not actually gotten around to testing any of the Myriad effects in this deck yet. I will see if I can get around to it at some point. One of the downsides of the Myriad effects is that they are all on somewhat of more expensive creatures and they don't give much ability to focus fire someone down. The equipment has always seemed somewhat expensive to utilize and like I said, while it adds some damage output you can't really focus people down all that well with the mechanic. I usually want to send something with evasion at someone with lots of defense while sending most of my force in one direction to try to chip people down.
Odric, Lunarch Marshal vs Odric, Master Tactician - given the life gain from Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper I often fair well vs opposing aggro decks. I think of the things that Odric, Lunarch Marshal can do, I like the sharing indestructible the most but the problem is from my list I have like one god. Its possible that flying + trample + lifelink + mennace might all add up more. I will have to give it some thought as I guess I had not really considered him before. I liked the idea of controlling combat because you can do some trades people would not like but at the same time Odric, Lunarch Marshal does come down and immediately share out his bonuses which is cool. I will give it some thought. I looked through my list and a little over half of my creatures have some keyword on them so I could see that being kind of cool to share that stuff about.
Sigarda, Host of Herons when people come after me with spot removal its usually after my commanders. So my fear for my commanders tends to be more towards protecting my commanders and not getting wrathed. There is actually not much edict removal in my meta but I could totally see including her if I saw more of it but its mostly the occasional Living Death and a very few in one specific black deck.
in the right meta Sunscorch Regent is a beast. wouldnt drop it for sigarda but maybe look for space to add her as she s good for protection while beating down.
i see alot of goodies in this deck but survival of the fittest might be not good enough here. there is no graveyard shenanigans, no living death, no fast combos, and the toolboxing is a little limited too. i guess something oneshot as eladamri's call is perfect but survival wants to be activated multiple times to make up the cost. and each time you need to drop a creature. your deck isnt full of manaelves that could be transformed lategame via survival. you got alot of individual goodis and i think survival takes you too much resources in this deck. put sigarda in that spot.
maybe think about karmic justice to sweep their board if they swweep your lands?
another tough about that is not make it a favorable position to geddon in the first place. i mean you could run geddon yourself here too as you commit heavy to the board even though you are control heavy. its just the timing - so if you make shure there is no good timing for opponents to drop geddon everything is cool. and if they play it cause they have it stuck too long in their hand you even profit (guess i go to far here but i see alot of people struggle when top geddon and when not to).
all in all nice brew. i guess tymna really brought so many different cool decks to the metagame as she is variable in colors while being a better phyrexian arena most of the time. exactly the midgame bridge to overcome the new mulligan weakspot.
MLD - its actually quieted down a bit. There are a few players who went off to college who were mostly the offenders over the summer. I guess for now I would prefer to not try to adjust this deck to the degree to make it less vulnerable to that sort of stuff as I think in general it just makes it weaker as a whole.
Tymna the Weaver - really it lets the deck do its thing. Normally running a bunch of vanilla beaters the issue is that you just run out of things to do. Given her draw power though it keeps me moving forward though. One of the biggest challenges is how much she gets targeted in the early game.
Additionally, if MLD is giving you problems you could run Sacred Ground and/or Ramunap Excavator and/or Crucible of Worlds as a meta call though they don't do that much on their own.... unless you add some MLD too.
Yea, for now it has queted back down. For a while my answer was to put this deck on the back burner and see how consistent they were going to play such tactics. I think through the course of the summer I saw... 3 Armageddons and one humility + animate lands lock. I had some other projects as well that I wanted to explore as well so giving a small break from this list was fine.
Ixilan Set Review:
Dire Fleet Ravager - I really like the abilities for the mana. Coming in and taking a big chunk off the top of everyone's life totals also plays nicely into how I like playing a deck like this. I have a good bit of life recovery in here as well so looking at his abilities and stats for the mana, I actually do like him as a generic beater as well as his ETB feeling helpful to me.
Legion's Landing - It is a tempo style of card. I added it to my vampire tribal deck and its been ok so far. My issue here is somewhat that a 1/1 token falls off if not played in the first few turns as I am not an anthem deck here. If I were to get this in the early turns my consistant commander at 3 makes me think I might be able to flip it on turns 4/5 but even then, I think the token is weak and I have access to ramp so I think that the tempo ramp is a little slow for this list especially given what I have access to and I think the 1/1 falls off more in this list. I probably would not advise this card in this specific deck.
Shapers' Sanctuary - I do constantly have to fight through a bit of spot removal. Its kind of amusing but probably not good enough for me to really be excited about it.
Vona, Butcher of Magan - I do sort of like the idea of a repeat removal cannon especially given the life I can gain in a deck like this. My issue is that it seems kind of slow and its stats / what it does outside of the exile seems only ok.
Overall, I think Dire Fleet Ravager looks promising. I could maybe see the vampire but I am sort of so so on him.
DECK CHANGES:
Survival of the Fittest -> Karlov of the Ghost Council - Survival has not been working out. I am intrigued by the fact that both of my commanders have some lifegain to them. If I could curve Karlov in on turn 2 he can draw me cards off of Tymnia and honestly if I can get someone to kill him instead of my commanders I am kind of cool with that. He can really snowball and act as removal when suddenly a bunch of creatures are giving me life as well.
Phyrexian Arena -> Aura Shards - I just all the time want to be removing toys and I have been adding more token makers so I think that the value of shards seems better and better. Both enchantments feel a little slow but its possible that I can trigger the shards a few times quickly. If I have like any other draw going I think phyrexian arena is a bit underwhelming.
Nylea, God of the Hunt -> Dire Fleet Ravager - Honestly, I have just been disapointed by Nylea too many times in this deck. I want her to be great but most of the good beaters already have evasion so it just feels less good.
Odric, Master Tactician -> Odric, Lunarch Marshal you know what, sure I will give it a shot and see how it does. I like that this version picks up all the abilities faster and some of those abilities (like flying) could be really strong to share out en mass. One of my commanders also has menace so its possible that could be a strong evasion to hand out menace + flying + trample... Seems interesting.
This deck's goal is to be a tempo oriented creature focused deck. It's strengths lie in being fast into the game with strong standalone threats as the game progresses. Many of the creatures in this build can threaten to kill players on their own or give us access to generate resources and control the board. This deck attempts to drop better creatures than our opponents while sweeping the noncreatures.
This is a guide to a creature focused deck with core concepts in card draw, combat, disruption, and lifegain. If you are not fond of the combat step, this may not be the list for you. While the roots and concept of this deck is in creatures and combat, it still has a lot of disruption woven in as well often when I can in creature form. It has been a very unique deck for myself in that it really does fit the mold for the definition of Rock.
When Tymna the Weaver was spoiled I knew essentially immediately that it was a commander I was interested in exploring. My first attempt was with Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa paired with her and I tried using a bunch of small creatures with evasion to draw me cards. I did not really foresee that partners puts a lot more board presence to play and it takes time to get both partners plus other cards to play and that made the combo feel too slow to get in play and get other board assembled. I felt like I was walking into wraths kind of hard as well. The process of rebuilding post wrath when you have two commanders you proactively want in play is a very challenging thing as it takes time and mana to get them both back into play reliably.
From there I moved to Ikra Shidiqi and had less of a proactive plan to play Ikra Shidiqi which I definitely saw benefit in. With the new deck I saw more benefit in just having some vanilla beaters in that they offered a lot more pressure per card and my commanders act as anthems to offer draw and lifegain. So I was off and my first build was chalked full of vanilla beaters that were stat efficient.
Since then, I have moved to more creatures that offer control and or generate value over time being in play. My goal with this was to redirect some of the hate off of Tymna because for a while it felt like if people just had spot removal for her the deck fell apart. Moving to more must answer creatures it has really diversified what my opponents need to remove and it has added a lot of control to my list which has been great when combined with the draw and lifegain that my commanders offer.
Tymna the Weaver
Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper
ALTERNATE CHOICES:
There are a few other partners I did put into some consideration if I did not find my partner pair to measure up:
Being that the partner mechanic has a TON of potential pairings I wont run through everything you "could" do as there are a lot of them. I highlighted what in my mind would be the directions I would consider and possibly think about if I were to ever break my partner pairing but wanted to continue with something similar.
This deck has a lot of things its trying to do so I will break some of them down and explain the reasoning for them:
These were most of the concepts I went with while building this list. This list is in a nutshell a tempo style of beater deck. There is a surprising amount of control in the list though even though there is a heavy focus on utilizing creatures.
1 Tymna the Weaver
1 Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper
CREATURES (32)
1 Caustic Caterpillar
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Serra Ascendant
1 Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
1 Bloom Tender
1 Dusk Legion Zealot
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Gaddock Teeg
1 Karlov of the Ghost Council
1 Lotus Cobra
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Selfless Spirit
1 Bastion Protector
1 Eternal Witness
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Recruiter of the Guard
1 Resplendent Angel
1 Wayward Swordtooth
1 Angel of Condemnation
1 Emeria Angel
1 Forgotten Ancient
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Archangel of Thune
1 Crested Sunmare
1 Kalonian Hydra
1 Tendershoot Dryad
1 Titania, Protector of Argoth
1 Bane of Progress
1 Rampaging Baloths
1 Sun Titan
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
1 Sol Ring
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Aetherflux Reservoir
ENCHANTMENT (6)
1 Exploration
1 Sylvan Library
1 Aura Shards
1 Necropotence
1 Greater Good
1 Lurking Predators
INSTANT (8)
1 Crop Rotation
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Eladamri's Call
1 Golgari Charm
1 Tribute to the Wild
1 Anguished Unmaking
1 Fracturing Gust
SORCERY (8)
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Genesis Wave
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Pir's Whim
1 Hour of Promise
1 Austere Command
1 Rishkar's Expertise
LAND (37)
1 Arid Mesa
1 Bayou
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Command Tower
1 Fetid Heath
1 Flooded Strand
3 Forest
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hall of the Bandit Lord
1 Kor Haven
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Murmuring Bosk
1 Overgrown Tomb
3 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
1 Savannah
1 Scavenger Grounds
1 Scrubland
1 Strip Mine
3 Swamp
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Temple Garden
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Yavimaya Hollow
Given that most of the landbase is just fixing mana I wont go through all of those unless someone wants me to.
PLAYING THE COMMANDERS:
GENERAL STRATEGY:
WEAKNESSES
STRENGTHS
1/19/17
This change was to get the list down to 100 cards as the original list was over 100 cards.
cuts:
adds:
1/24/17:
2/6/17:
8/10/17:
8/28/17:
9/5/17:
11/2/17:
11/9/17:
11/14/17:
11/20/17
12/12/17:
12/14/17:
12/27/17:
1/5/18:
1/10/18:
1/19/18:
6/4/18:
7/16/18:
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[Modern] Allies
In my build, I run Silent Arbiter as a way of making Irka unblock-able. I will be adding Dueling Grounds soon as well.
Alhammarret's Archive would also serve you well since it compliments both generals.
You can check out my evolving list here
I hadn't thought about Spiritmonger. I am slowly trying to incorporate as many +1 / +1 counter growth effects in my deck as I can, so I think this guys might be a good contender.
DECK CHANGES:
cuts:
adds:
I ended up adding my lands as well. I ran on a very hodge podged together landbase last night but I intend to fine tune it. I might make some tweaks to it yet as I work on it IRL too but I at least got a relatively normal landbase up there.
Normally when I build decks I build decks up over 100 cards. It ended up in my list given it was a decent started minion with a positive effect that could be fetched if needed. In the end its not quite stat efficient enough for me to justify running so I did cut it but if it had been like a 5/5 for 4 it might have gotten to stay. When it comes to green creatures, picking up unique effects can be strong as it opens some tutoring options. I have always felt it is an interesting card but it would depend a little on the meta and what is being run too. Currently my meta is running a lot of Homeward Path for some reason so it has been pushing people away from creature theft a little more which is a bit ironic in that theft really had not been a problem.
I love Spiritmonger. I started playing FNM magic just after it had rotated and I bought a playset which I used quite a bit casually with my friends. That all said, things that I am fond of from back in the day are one thing but I feel like a slightly above statted 5 drop is a little lacking. It does not have any evasion or value over time so its just a beater who can regenerate which I have a hard time justifying in a 5 mana beater.
Its a cool idea but I think its a little lacking when compared to modern day creatures.
Silent Arbiter / Dueling Grounds - these are interesting tactics if you are considering doing voltron tactics and such. I run Silent Arbiter in my Kozilek deck which I really like it there but I feel like Ikra Shidiqi is just a little small to really worry about sending her in unblocked. I am also going for more of a swarm with solid mass approach rather than sending in one or two attackers approach.
Alhammarret's Archive - its not a bad idea but I have been trying to keep things simple. Both of my commanders are already situational on doing something to get their value so I wanted to stay away from cards that rely on my commanders doing their normal thing to be good. Its a little winmore in that if I have my commanders out and they are doing their thing I dont really need to make that better but if I am not out and doing my thing then this does nothing.
I might steal Noxious Gearhulk as an idea from your list. I played with the idea of Shadowborn Demon and or Duplicant but both felt a little clunky. Getting menace and a removal might be worth considering though.
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[Modern] Allies
DECK CHANGES:
Strong Considerations: a few cards I still want to squeeze in but havent figured out how yet.
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[Modern] Allies
I thoroughly disagree. Don't underestimate the 'Monger; He can fight every titan and win.
It depends a little on priorities I guess. For the most part I am not worried about trading with a titan because I have more of them than my opponents. Most titans in this format are designed to be value over time cards as well so if they are blocking with a titan to defend themselves, I dont really care if I trade with it as most of them need to stay in play and attack to really gain their value.
I wont deny that there are upsides to the monger but he also has a lot of downsides which are primarily that creatures have scope creeped since his time. A 6/6 for 5 mana isn't really that impressive anymore. It has no evasion either so rather than beating titans, my concern is that he just runs into tokens or ETB creatures and accomplishes very little.
Keep in mind that your opponents chose how to block and thats the problem he has. If your opponents have titan sized creatures then they will use them to block whatever they can trade with anyways so its not like they would use a titan to block a spiritmonger anyways.
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[Modern] Allies
I won't deny it, power creep hit spiritmonger hard, but he's hardly "Unimpressive". He dodges protections, refuses to die, and grows progressively, whether chump blocked or otherwise. I guess my meta just runs more swords than yours, hence why the green ability tends to be more useful than not.
And for the record, I'm not expecting opponents to just throw their titans under the MongerBus, but merely a statement of his size and potential. He's still a very playable card and I imagine you'd get more mileage out of him than Kothophed.
Another good card to look into is Phantom Nishoba. What a great threat! Trample, pusedo lifelink, and it resists death in combat. In my build it is pretty easy to add new counters. That would be a weakness in yours, but you might still like it because you can search it out with Recruiter of the Guard, and it would fit into Avenger of Zendikar's slot.
Kothophed might not be a widely played card in the format however it is still a 6/6 flyer for 6 who has card draw on it. If I eat a wrath with Kothoped in play I am probably drawing cards. If I play Kothoped and attack into chump blockers I am also probably drawing cards. So, its a card draw driven evasive threat that is efficient stats for the mana with evasion. That sounds sort of exactly what I am looking for in a deck like this.
Spiritmonger's ability to regen is also something that taxes its cost. Either you play around the option of regenerating and you turn him into a 6/6 for 6 as well as keep that one mana up every turn (kind of like an upkeep in some ways). If I were to encounter a wrath effect, first of all the wraths depend entirely on what they do and if you can regenerate at all anyways not to mention that you are looking at keeping one creature of many which means you will be rebuilding anyways or I could potentially draw a new fistful of cards with Kothoped. I don't really see any logic that makes me think that Spiritmonger makes sense over Kothoped at this time.
Verdurous Gearhulk - I did consider this creature for a bit. In the end, I think its probably a fine beater and I like the ability to shift counters as needed but I also felt like since I did not yet have a copy, its long term price tag probably wont hold up much so I might look into it a bit deeper before I bother picking one up myself. Kalonian Hydra is probably stronger in sheer force but the ability to move counters as you want could also be useful especially if you ever like Chord of Calling for it mid combat as a trick. Its a long shot but who knows lol.
Phantom Nishoba - I like the card, I used to play against a friend of mine casually who played the hell out of it. Overall though its a little expensive for what you get. It brings me back like spiritmonger, but again.... scope creep of creatures has probably made this a little obsolete. The fact that I also have life gain built in with Ikra makes me even more against it as any sort of argument of the lifegain becomes less relevant here.
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[Modern] Allies
DECK CHANGE:
Cultivate -> Bloom Tender I had issues in that Cultivate felt like they landed at a little bit of an awkward mana cost for this deck. I often found myself being too busy for a 3 mana ramp. Its possible I move to more of the 2 mana ramp especially the ones that bring in lands untapped. Bloom Tender gives me a really sick curve with Tymna as it gives me essentially a free commander into play.
Kodama's Reach -> Knight of the Reliquary same issues with cultivate, I just felt too action packed starting at 3 mana to be casting ramp. Knight gives me a lot of utility options as well as some ramp options. I have a lot of landfall triggers in this deck as well which Knight goes well with.
1 Forest -> Yavimaya Hollow I realized my digital list didn't have the Hollow but my physical list did. It isn't something I feel I need too often but it does give me some utility options. I used it once to protect Tymna from a Shard Pheonix as well which is great. Overall I dont know entirely how I stand with it but as of right now I am ok with it. Knight of the Reliquary may increase my interest in my utility lands as well so I will keep an eye on it and see how it performs for me.
With these changes, I also considered removing Skyshroud Claim but I felt I was more ok with it considering its negative mana loss the turn it dropped was lower than Cultivate and Kodama's Reach because the lands come in untapped and it gives me more positive tempo for future turns rather than just a balance of ramp and card advantage. Cutting Cultivate and Kodama's Reach also reduces my dependency on basic lands a little which is good. I did consider some 2 mana options especially something like Nature's Lore where the land comes in untapped. Deathrite Shaman was also something I considered as a replacement here but Bloom Tender won out here given how much more of a power ramp it gave in comparison. I am a little less certain on the Knight of the Reliquery but I like that its got good stats as well gives me utility and ramp options.
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[Modern] Allies
The Jund deck tutored Pernicious Deed and kept 5 mana up for it. I ended up swinging my creatures other than Kalonian at him because the mono red deck had a Mystifying Maze in play that I intended to deal with the next turn. The jund player popped the deed for 5 and I Heroic Interventioned through it. The jund player and mono red player scoop here. It is down to me and the hug player. I play a Knight of the Reliquery and am sitting on like 80 life.
The hug deck plays a Glacial Chasm + Island Sanctuary. I use Knight to fetch Strip Mine into play and take out the Chasm. I then Bane of Progress to clear the Sanctuary and swing for lethal regardless.
Overall, it was a fast game where it ended probably somewhere around turn 8 or 9 in about a half hour. The deck is doing well. I might consider a second Strip Mine effect and or possibly something like Acidic Slime where I can tutor up a target land removal if and when I want. Mystifying Maze against Kalonian Hydra is kind of rough but again, most of my deck does not get caught by things like that so I might just worry less about it. I did have a brief thought of adding Wolfir Silverheart as an option for some defense for Tymna as later in the game I had some concerns about the low toughness on her. It might also just be me over thinking things though so for now I just wont worry about it until I can get more testing in.
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[Modern] Allies
My choice of cut would be Kalemne's Captain
Dont see you having 7 mana to dump into its ability, as good as its effect would be.
The Gitrog Monster I like the extra land drops a turn and the potential to draw but I often dont have enough lands to really be dropping them or I will just kind of maintain my land count. I feel like I would want Crucible of Worlds / Life from the Loam in here before I would really justify it for myself. Its possible that I should be running Crucible considering how many "extra" land drops a turn I do run but I feel like Gitrog is still a ways out. I also have some issue with the fact that he lacks any evasion (I guess deathtouch...)
Kalemne's Captain - its ok. I used the monstrosity once already and it was alright. I think the more likely thing is I should probably cut it for Survival of the Fittest which still preserves it somewhat in Bane of Progress being in my list. I feel like there are a few toolbox cards that I probably should have though too with Survival.
I will have to mull a few things over. I think Gitrog could fit but I feel like I would want to be seeing more draw or more land recursion effects before I went there. There is definitely a lot of synergy for him in here but I also am concered about my overall land count as in a lot of cases I struggle to maintain enough draw to really output a lot of lands a turn on a normal basis. Some of it is also that I need to test more and see what is and is not working. I only have 3 games of testing in so far.
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[Modern] Allies
Kalemne's Captain -> Survival of the Fittest The captain is really slow and Survival can always fetch me up Bane of Progress or Serra Ascendant so I feel like it gives me better versatility in what I would want from the captain.
Knight of the Reliquary -> Managorger Hydra honestly, I forgot that Managorger Hydra was a card until somewhat recently when I was helping someone with another deck and we discussed it. It should be another good solid aggro add for the deck. The Knight still seems decent to me but I think the Hydra is going to pick up a lot faster and snowball bigger. The Knight could come back in later but I wanted to make room for the Hydra for now.
I was looking at Amonkhet for this deck and I thought it may be worth considering a few cards:
Oketra the True I think the trigger is doable and it hits farily good. Being a 4 drop it should curve between my commanders or at least in after Tymna decently but the question is if I have a 1-2 drop because with just Tymna it cant attack on curve which is unfortunate. Its triggered ability is also really not ideal for this deck.
Harvest Season it seems like it could be good ramp but its winmore at best. It ramps me after I have several creatures in and attacking. Well.... thats interesting but its only really good if I am doing well so I think I am going to pass. It could still be good in the right deck like say a token deck that can produce tokens based on a mana cost.
Rhonas the Indomitable I think the trigger is very doable in this deck but being a 3 drop it interferes some with Tymna which is a little bit of a problem. Its activated ability is nice and its size is good too but I have concerns with it being essentially a 4 drop because I dont see myself dropping it over Tymna.
I think the new gods are kind of interesting but in general they seem a little slower due to their indestructibility so I think I will pass on them for faster and more explosive creatures.
Sorry about the delay, I think in general it may be better to be a little lighter on the number of protection outlets in case they are the wrong options for what your opponents have. Depending on the meta though it could probably go up based on the amount of wraths you see. I think its better to be bluffing that you have one though than to have 3 in hand at one time. Sometimes the bluff of having one is just as effective.
There is also some fall off of these effects as you increase their number within your creatures as to some extent the creature tutors can go and get them if need be but your third and fourth line options start to have diminishing return. I know that I almost always aim for Selfless Spirit over Dauntless Escort because of the flying evasion could net draw me some additional cards off of Tymna. When you start looking at 3-5 creature targets for defenses I feel like it would just increase the case of this happening where you dont find yourself wanting some of them as much.
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[Modern] Allies
Sapling of Colfenor - it could work from the perspective that it draws cards and is robust but its ability to draw as well as its ability to swing in are both underwhelming to me. Assuming I am drawing normal and or have not factored in thinning, less than 1/3 of the time will the top card of my library be a creature. I would normally want a more aggressive clock or something more consistent in card advantage than what it is offering.
Puppeteer Clique - in a lot of ways I could see this working. I really do love this card but my meta has been running a lot more really wierd niche decks of late which often have less staple ETB effects. This creature is also slower to get going as you really dont want it in an opening hand as it can be slow to actually get targets for. I think its a good suggestion, its just a little slower than I was aiming for right now with this deck as really Clique is more of a mid to late game value sort of creature from my experience where as I am trying to be an explosive tempo aggro deck with this build. I think if I were having less success with being a tempo aggro deck with this then it would become better for me but as things stand I have been snowballing games a lot starting from early turns with this.
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[Modern] Allies
DECK CHANGES:
Eerie Interlude -> Teferi's Protection I am running the Interlude as primarily a defense vs sweepers and I have been adding more and more tokens which makes it a little less friendly. Teferi's Protection when not factoring in ETB effects (which this deck has little of) is almost a strict upgrade for what I was using it for here. Plus, Teferi's Protection is a completely sick fog.
Dauntless Escort -> Angel of Condemnation Dauntless is never anything I really want to tutor for. It costs the same as Tymna which is unfortunate as it means its almost never dropped on that turn. It also lacks evasion so its not really a good attacker and I usually dont want to burn a tutor for it. Angel of Condemnation is new but what I like about it is its stats and built in static abilities for its mana. The flicker it offers could help vs sweepers but mostly I think in a pinch I can flicker out a problematic creature. Its kind of a well rounded creature and it gives me another evasive 4 drop that can serve as control if I need it. I am not totally sold but I have been fairly interested in it since it got spoiled.
Kothophed, Soul Hoarder -> Crested Sunmare sooooooo Kothophed has its moments where I go back and forth. There have been a few too many situations though where I start power drawing like 10-40 cards in a wrath that is getting a little too concerning though. I like that its an evasive 6 drop that can draw me cards I just wish it was a little less terrifying and bursty sometimes lol. There have been games vs token decks where he really backfires on me and thats what I am trying to shore up but cutting him right now. Crested Sunmare has been really cool in my Gisela deck and I realized that both of my commanders here have lifegain attached to them here. I am also kind of pushing a robust meatstacks wagon agenda here and I like that it protects its tokens and makes one quickly after entering play. Its sort of like Armada Wurm but with a continuous token generation option and the ability to protect its friends instead of trample.
Lurking Predators -> Traverse the Outlands Lurking Predators is such a cool card... but I have found it underwhelming when I play it in here in part because of the good card draw I have. Its one of those cards where when it works its amazing but when the next thing that happens is a Naturalize and you flip a land you just want to smash your face into the table. Traverse the Outlands looks really really brutal with the high powered creatures I run in here. I think it should be fairly normal to expect to get 4-6 lands off of it. The only concern is that I probably need to boost my basic count just a little to justify it. Sakura-Tribe Elder is currently the only basic land search based effect I have in the deck but I am also only running 8 basics in the deck. Its kind of hard to really do the math but even if we assume that 6 is really kind of the high end of my average result for this card do I really think I will have drawn into 3 basics already? I think I am probably close to the number where I want to be but I am also thinking about pushing my basic count by like 1-2 is something I will need to consider. This deck has been getting heavier and heavier into being like this gross landfall deck and I think this really enables a LOT of the sick landfall triggers as well as just giving me this huge resource advantage to move forward with. Lurking Predators I think really shines more in a deck where you are filling it with ETB effects and or possibly have some lack of card advantage that you need to fill in for.
Anyways, I will keep thinking a little on my basic land count because of Traverse the Outlands. As odd as it is, I am also giving some thought in cutting Phyrexian Arena here in part because its slow over time draw as well as where its mana to play is. Right now I think its ok but its something I am keeping my eye on.
Honorable Mentions:
Majestic Myriarch Assuming I have Tymna out its already a 4/4 lifelink creature. The biggest fear I have for this creature is just how much time it takes to get up and running. Sure, it seems great to think of the situations it might be like a 10/10+ flying lifelinker with menace. I am conflicted on it because I see a lot of promise in it but I also fear how much time it would take to get it up and running.
Razaketh, the Foulblooded I kept thinking about it as an 8/8 for 8 flying trample which is all like super groovy but its mana cost just didnt make sense for me. It is a great creature no doubt but I want to be in play doing things sooner than that and its immediate impact given its mana cost just didnt make sense to me. The tutors sound great but at the same time other than a few token producers I dont really want to sacrifice most of what I am playing and there isnt 1 thing I want most of the time other than perhaps like wrath protection as someone casts a wrath. Most of the cost of this creature is in the power of its ability and I just couldnt justify it right now to myself as being worth the mana. Elesh Norn for instance is something I run at 7 mana but its immediate impact is enormous in comparison. This guy felt like a value over time reanimation target / creature abuse engine than a beater to me. Rune-Scarred Demon kind of started making more sense to me than this guy after more thought but I dont even want that so I am just at the point where I am cool without this.
Scavenger Grounds Grave hate is great, I just only have so many slots for utility lands. It might still be something I consider though.
Torment of Hailfire I like how its sort of hand hate / board hate / life total pressure all in one. In the end though, its kind of a lot of mana before it makes sense and I dont want to hold onto it that long.
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[Modern] Allies
DECK CHANGES:
The replacement for Surrak is one that I am a little less confident but I do know that I was having some issues with him so I am fine with just kind of seeing how it pans out.
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[Modern] Allies
DECK CHANGE:
The new meta still has some creature based strategies but it feels like there are a lot less creatures. I ran into a bit of removal as it seems they are fond of Oblivion Ring effects in the new meta I felt like bumping my noncreature hate up a little will pay off well. I am not sure what my plan is right now for not getting Armageddoned but its possible I just put more priority in Gaddock Teeg or its also possible I consider adding Aura Shards to this deck.
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[Modern] Allies
Also, would Odric, Lunarch Marshall not be better than Odric, Master Tactician? I know the latter helps connect slightly better by guaranteeing no blocks, but the former also helps out on the defense (and gives your commander's lifelink + menace to each creature).
As far as efficient beaters go, why are you not running Sigarda, Host of Herons? I would argue she can replace Sunscorch Regent in a pinch AND protects your board from sacrifice effects.
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
Herald of the Host / Blade of Selves - I have not actually gotten around to testing any of the Myriad effects in this deck yet. I will see if I can get around to it at some point. One of the downsides of the Myriad effects is that they are all on somewhat of more expensive creatures and they don't give much ability to focus fire someone down. The equipment has always seemed somewhat expensive to utilize and like I said, while it adds some damage output you can't really focus people down all that well with the mechanic. I usually want to send something with evasion at someone with lots of defense while sending most of my force in one direction to try to chip people down.
Odric, Lunarch Marshal vs Odric, Master Tactician - given the life gain from Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper I often fair well vs opposing aggro decks. I think of the things that Odric, Lunarch Marshal can do, I like the sharing indestructible the most but the problem is from my list I have like one god. Its possible that flying + trample + lifelink + mennace might all add up more. I will have to give it some thought as I guess I had not really considered him before. I liked the idea of controlling combat because you can do some trades people would not like but at the same time Odric, Lunarch Marshal does come down and immediately share out his bonuses which is cool. I will give it some thought. I looked through my list and a little over half of my creatures have some keyword on them so I could see that being kind of cool to share that stuff about.
Sigarda, Host of Herons when people come after me with spot removal its usually after my commanders. So my fear for my commanders tends to be more towards protecting my commanders and not getting wrathed. There is actually not much edict removal in my meta but I could totally see including her if I saw more of it but its mostly the occasional Living Death and a very few in one specific black deck.
Survival of the Fittest - originally I was justifying it as I could turn almost any creature into Abyssal Persecutor through means of Serra Ascendant. Since adding it though, I agree that its not doing enough for me.
MLD - its actually quieted down a bit. There are a few players who went off to college who were mostly the offenders over the summer. I guess for now I would prefer to not try to adjust this deck to the degree to make it less vulnerable to that sort of stuff as I think in general it just makes it weaker as a whole.
Tymna the Weaver - really it lets the deck do its thing. Normally running a bunch of vanilla beaters the issue is that you just run out of things to do. Given her draw power though it keeps me moving forward though. One of the biggest challenges is how much she gets targeted in the early game.
Yea, for now it has queted back down. For a while my answer was to put this deck on the back burner and see how consistent they were going to play such tactics. I think through the course of the summer I saw... 3 Armageddons and one humility + animate lands lock. I had some other projects as well that I wanted to explore as well so giving a small break from this list was fine.
Ixilan Set Review:
Overall, I think Dire Fleet Ravager looks promising. I could maybe see the vampire but I am sort of so so on him.
DECK CHANGES:
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies