Ah yes I do know of All is dust and Ugin. I'll probably upgrade a boardwipe to all is dust. Mystical Tutor was reprinted in the Jace spellbook thing and is only $4 right now! Super glad you mentioned spellseeker. Makes Mystical tutor, vampiric tutor and entomb so much better.
Training grounds will be my next purchase for the deck. I love the card, just felt like there were some more critical things to grab first.
Big upgrade yet again. I've decided to add a combo package, despite my meta having none of them yet. I believe the time is now for combos. I'm trying to beat this Jeleva deck that's been ruining my day. Adding a combo package may bring this deck up into the competitive realm.
New list:
The combo: Mikaeus, the unhallowed and Triskelion or Walking Ballista. We must play Triskelion or ballita from our hand, however Mikaeus can be resurrected via the scarab god and the combo still works. The idea is to deal infinite damage to all opponents. Triskelion enters the first time able to ping an opponent one time, then remove the remaining two counters to deal the damage to itself. REMEMBER THAT MIKAEUS GIVES NON-HUMANS +1/+1! In this combo, we must always save enough counters to kill triskelion. Walking ballista simply needs to save the last counter for itself, as it will be a 1/1 once the last counter is removed.
Note that Mystical Tutor, or spellseeker can be used to tutor up entomb or vampiric tutor. Final Parting can put Mikaeus into the 'yard (as does entomb and Corpse Connisseur) and ballista/Triskelion into hand. Trophy Mage can search for Triskelion into hand.
Also of note, I added Arena of the Ancients. This is to combat the Jeleva deck, Voltron, and eldrazi commanders that frequent my meta. This card slots in nicely in this deck. Our commander continues to provide a ton of advantage even if tapped, while these problematic commanders don't.
Cauldron of souls went in too. I run a lot of boardwipes. This can help me save my creatures, especially the scarab god, from the wipes. Especially good with all of the etb effects present in my creatures. Glad to finally have found a home where this card shines.
I'm excited to add a bit of a combo theme to the deck, but not have it completely revolve around it. This will give me an out when things get too gummed up from control decks.
I'll update the "primer" section to reflect this change in a while.
I realized that the Walking Ballista Mikaeus the unhallowed "combo" doesn't actually work. When Ballista undies, it is still a 1/1 with only one counter to ping only itself and not an opponent. It could work with Altar of Dementia, but adding in another card for the combo to work just seemed too far fetched.
I removed some tutors which were becoming redundant. I've added in some mill. There are obvious advantages to mill with the scarab god. It is especially relevant for me as I face off against a friend who uses Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge and Proteus Staff to stack his entire deck (which contains no creatures) in his desired order. Mill will help screw with his gameplan.
Mindcrank seems like it just causes the opponents to focus on attacking me to prevent me from getting access to more creatures. Altar of Dementia didn't do enough work.
Archaeomancer should do some great work now that I have all of these cheap tutors. Returning boardwipes is nice too since I took a few out to make room for other stuff.
Thassa, God of the Sea This card seems obviously good for my deck. I like having creatures that draw or filter cards for me. Who doesn't like playing with a full grip of relevant cards?
Skyscanner Cheap cantrip creatures have been really nice for me. An easy early play that I don't mind blocking with to give the god fodder. Flying is relevant when it comes back as a 4/4.
Army of the Damned back in. The tutors are relevant here again. I also realized that I could use entomb to use this card's flashback ability from the yard. Another good target for archaeomancer too.
I've found that the deck was definitely skewed too heavily on creature control focus. Can't wait to see how this new incarnation goes. I may need to cut a land.
Mindcrank seems like it just causes the opponents to focus on attacking me to prevent me from getting access to more creatures. Altar of Dementia didn't do enough work.
It could simply be my own experience - but Mindcrank is a well known combo piece. Generally, I avoid playing it when I can't immediately make use of it to either win, or set up behind the current board-stall.
Also, interesting that Consuming Aberration is working it's way into your build. It's on the way out in mine, along with Phenax, God of Deception. I focused my build around keeping a consistently lower cmc, so anything that costs 3+ can feel like it costs entirely too much mana for too trivial an impact. I'll post my list sometime later, been meaning to get around to that for a while.
My deck is pretty light on mill in general. I like that Consuming Aberration is both mill and a creature. I figure if an opponent has even one card in their graveyard and I cast something, it will get big soon enough. Mostly, I like that this will mess up my friend's Jeleva deck. He uses Proteus staff to stack his deck exactly how he wants. This usually means putting lands on the bottom. I can really punish him with this card. Also, most of my meta is very creature based, so milling becomes even better for The Scarab God. So this card is a meta choice for me. It may not be good enough though.
I appreciate the low cmc comment. I keep working to lower that. I like having cheap creatures that provide value quickly and I don't mind boardwiping away. My list is still in it's teenage years of development in my opinion. It's starting to find it's identity, but still evolving quite a bit. I've changed the theme of the deck a few times now since it's incarnation.
Regarding Mindcrank; my meta doesn't use combos. I want my mill to be more useful in the early/mid game. With my tiny creatures, and generally saving the god until later, I just couldn't make people loose life fast enough, early enough. I slotted it out for the new Psychic Corrosion which seems much better in my opinion. This will get people milling right away the turn after it comes out. I have a few looting creatures and a ton of card draw, so this puppy should fire off quite a bit. Also, this card can't be worked around by everyone just focusing their attacks on me. When my mana count goes way up, and my opponents already have a few creatures in their 'yards, they have made packs not to attack each other when my mind crank was out. That scenario is just too risky.
Thanks for the comment. I look forward to seeing your list sometime!
My deck is pretty light on mill in general. I like that Consuming Aberration is both mill and a creature. I figure if an opponent has even one card in their graveyard and I cast something, it will get big soon enough. Mostly, I like that this will mess up my friend's Jeleva deck. He uses Proteus staff to stack his deck exactly how he wants. This usually means putting lands on the bottom. I can really punish him with this card. Also, most of my meta is very creature based, so milling becomes even better for The Scarab God. So this card is a meta choice for me. It may not be good enough though.
If it's a meta call, good luck. I've always loved Mill, and Consuming Aberration is a pet card of mine. I originally had it in a Damia, Sage of Stone big mana deck. Being able to cast Villainous Wealth, Mind Grind, Exsanguinate, or Torment of Hailfire for X=20+ was effective, even if it got boring after a while. CA did good work for me there. In my Scarab God though, I can never justify playing it.
Regarding Mindcrank; my meta doesn't use combos. I want my mill to be more useful in the early/mid game. With my tiny creatures, and generally saving the god until later, I just couldn't make people loose life fast enough, early enough. I slotted it out for the new Psychic Corrosion which seems much better in my opinion. This will get people milling right away the turn after it comes out. I have a few looting creatures and a ton of card draw, so this puppy should fire off quite a bit. Also, this card can't be worked around by everyone just focusing their attacks on me. When my mana count goes way up, and my opponents already have a few creatures in their 'yards, they have made packs not to attack each other when my mind crank was out. That scenario is just too risky.
I'm usually between my personal group of friends and my local LGS and while most aren't playing a dedicated combo deck, many of us include them. I don't mind playing combo, but I have a personal restriction on how many tutors I'll let myself use. With this in mind, Mindcrank definitely isn't an effective way to mill for your group, and removing it is a good call. Combo or not, I'll recommend Altar of the Brood if you want incremental mill.
Playing an Altar in the first 3-4 turns of a long game can have a stupid impact. I wouldn't play it for ages, personally - thought it was awful and underwhelming for Commander. But after giving it a shot, it's not unusual for it to put 5-20 cards into each opponent's graveyard before someone pulls the trigger to remove it.
I should amend "my meta doesn't really use combos" to "there are a couple floating around." I still have the Triskelion/Mikaues combo in my deck, but I haven't popped it off. I'm not against them personally. It's just people don't look at my mindcrank and think "he's going to combo off now."
Anyway, I do like Altar of the Brood and I had it in before. I put in psychic corrosion recently and I thought it might be better. Looking at the 1 cost vs. 3 cost though, perhaps I should stick with altar after all.
I'd argue that having Altar and Corrosion should be fine. My build had too many mill-support cards to start, so I've been phasing them out, but those two have stayed on my 'keep' list without a doubt. They flip so many cards into graveyards.
Out of curiosity, how much work do Looter Il-kor and Merfolk Looter do for you? I'm looking to remove them from my build - they simply don't do enough, and topdecking them feels awful.
I missed this reply somehow. My deck never goes into top decking mode. By the time my hand is low on cards, I can just play out the god and start resurrecting stuff. My deck has a theme with low to the ground useful creatures. I like to draw cards and loot with my smaller creatures. Helps me dig for the combo or a tutor et.
Looter Il-kor is especially worthwhile in my opinion as it has great evasion on it. It's also why I like Wharf-infiltrator and Balefulstrix. You just start popping off two cost creatures for card advantage and dig for a boardwipe. Let opponents develop board and play out commanders, then wipe. Next turn play god and start resurrecting your evasive creatures that come back as 4/4's and start going to town. Meanwhile, replaying those creatures refills your hand by drawing cards or at least letting you dig for tutors or more card draw. I may not need all 3 of the looters in there now that I've added Thassa, which seems better than merfolk looter.
Another aspect to these guys is playing out some early cards that will help me find lands. My deck hates missing land drops in the first 6 turns. It has a high mana curve, and I want to be able to activate the God's ability twice in one turn late game. I actually find my hand to get a bit crowded during games, which I like. You can get extra value by just discarding creatures, which almost makes it a draw card ability.
EDIT: I consider these looters, alongside cantrip creatures like skyscanner the bread and butter of my deck. I always have something to play early that helps with card advantage. A plethora of cheap creatures help me fill up my graveyard early, something I like to do. I want to have at least 1 creature in my yard before the god comes out. I see this deck as being a control deck at this point. It will be able to boardwipe when it wants to. Remove creatures when it wants to. Counter a spell occasionally. I'm generally trying to gain card and board advantage on my opponents. Keep wiping and killing off their commanders until it's just me, my god, and a ***** ton of creatures and cards in hand to start decimating. These bread and butter creatures keep me from dying to aggro decks, or blocking voltron commanders et. if I can't boardwipe soon enough. Later, they provide extra value as a 4/4 "can trip", usually with evasion.
I haven't gotten to test my deck much recently though. I'd like to see your list and gameplay theory.
I do have a lot of mill cards. I upped the number recently because I was missing them. I've talked about my creature heavy meta, and my friend's Jeleva deck that he is able to constantly stack his entire deck in the order he wants. Mill is a good way to mess with that plan. Also, I was missing dread summons. this card helped me win too many games before. Can't remember why I took it out.
It could just be personal preference: they tend to be too low impact for me to keep up unless they manage to survive several turns. The evasion is wonderful, but decks in my meta can outpace me rapidly if I'm relying on the combat step or a tap ability too often to filter cards. I think a big difference between our builds is obvious, though:
My deck hates missing land drops in the first 6 turns. It has a high mana curve
For my version, the majority of the deck falls into the 2-4 cmc range with Scarab God being the top end/engine. Filtering isn't as much of a problem for me because I play smaller creatures; I was more attracted to how TSG can make small dudes bigger and catch people off guard with it. Skyscanner is actually a great catch, and I'll definitely be trying it out.
I haven't been posting much because the games were not flowing for me the past month. My first game back (4 player) I won.
Here's the list I settled on:
Just a refresher: the goal of this deck is to attrition out/control the opponents, or combo out with Triskelion and Mikaeus the unhallowed. I did win with the combo, sometime around turn 10-12?
The deck played out beautifully. As expected, the early cantrip creatures and Phyrexian Arena kept my cards flowing. The Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge deck was taken out early by another opponent (turn 5), who ended up at 80 life in the aftermath. Not deterred due to the triskelion in hand, I trekked onward. I was able to scry into a corpse conniesuer which put Mikaeus the unhallowed into my graveyard. I played Damnation as the 80 life Edgar Markov opponent was getting out of hand with creatures. After another boardwipe (played by edgar markov opponent) and some patience, I was able to combo out to close the game.
The deck performed beautifully. Rhystic Study showed up and was amazing of course. The cheap cantrip creatures really do more than you think on paper. I love them because they are chump block fodder that fill up the 'yard early. Simultaneously, they keep your hand full. Part of the reason I'm fine with Rotting Rats making me discard is that my hand gets ridiculous.
The deck keeps kicking ass in the long game, which is what it's meant to do. Also, 6 boardwipes alongside all of the tutors was necessary.
I won the next game played (same list), even after promising not to combo off. (Which I did have the opportunity to do. The deck seems to have the staying power to pull off that high cost combo, at least in my meta.)
The God is really pleasing me right now. I'm going to leave the decklist as is for the foreseeable future. Don't fix what isn't broke.
In both games, my opponents were really low on cards at the end. My hand was still decent, and I had plenty of targets in the 'yards both times. This is exactly how my deck is trying to steer the game. Boardwipe away their cards, bring their creatures back to haunt them later.
Noteworthy performances: Buried Alive is great. With so many creatures, this card is like a swiss army knife for your graveyard. I tend to search for Mikaeus the unhallowed, which is good even when not trying to combo off.
Dismiss is the most recent addition. I prefer it to Disdainful Stroke which was my second choice for this slot. The cantrip aspect is obviously good and adds to the deck's card advantage theme. Also, I find myself often leaving up 4 mana to possibly "externalize" a creature on someone's end step before my next turn. Dismiss fits in nicely in these cases. Wait to see if you need to counter anything. If not, resurrect a creature with the God instead
Rotting Rats was a fine addition too. I was able to stash away a nice creature with it, while stripping my opponents of their dwindling cards. If I hadn't won through playing an Army of the Damned and making them lose a ton of life, I was in a position to make both of my opponents discard their two remaining cards through "externalizing" Rotting rats and Liliana's specter. These cards fit in great with my theme of gaining card advantage over my opponents. The more early creatures I can jam that deny my opponents their resources early, the better off the deck seems to be.
Dissipation Field was in because I couldn't find my Propaganda. It performed very well. Many times people avoided attacking me and stated so, because of the field. Perhaps it's better than propaganda?
Fatestitcher: It's nice that this guy is a zombie. I was super glad to have it in play against my friend's nefarious Jeleva deck. While I didn't get to use it against him, it was nice to have a way to shut down his commander. Also, I did use him to prevent some attacks I knew were coming at me. The ability to neuter an alpha strike is truly great in this deck of smaller creatures. The card plays defense when needed, then switches to offense once the tide has turned. I also used him to get through extra damage during my combat phase at times. My guess, this is probably the card that is easiest to underrate when looking at it. It's not just okay, or decent, it's REALLY good.
6 boardwipes seems to be the right number, if not possibly 7. My list can be in trouble if it doesn't draw one by mid/late game. I have always had access to a wipe when I really needed it in both games. Had to use 2 boardwipes in my second game to secure a victory.
Weaknesses are the high number of extremely low power creatures in the early game. A really good aggro deck might sneak under this one. If multiple opponents target me in the early game, which is much more likely to happen the more wins The God nabs, that could be a problem. Luckily, The scarab god is a force to be reckoned with as a blocker and the deck can get him out by turn 4 almost always. However, the ideal situation to me seems to be to hold off on playing the God until after there are at least a few good targets in the graveyard.
Another weakness may be the god's ability to finish off games fast enough, once I've stripped my opponents of most of their resources. Trying to beat down with mostly 4/4's is a slow process to win. On the other hand, the deck can start steam rolling as I get more zombies out round after round in the late game. Those life loss triggers really start to add up, especially when scrying so deep every turn.
My deck usually runs a full grip of cards or close to it until turn 5-6. The card advantage of this deck is so crazy that I have to find lines to be able to play two spells in one turn asap, so that I can play a nice concentrate or Phyrexian arena or Mulldrifter et. It's a really good feeling to have more cards than you know what to do with. Unlike other my other edh decks, this one never has to try and hold back some creatures/spells to hedge against boardwipes. I may need to add a Reliquary Tower and Expedition Map package to the deck.
If you want to adapt to what I'd expect your opponents to do (if they wanted to properly adapt to this) is to run some graveyard hate. (or answers to theirs)
Some strategies off the top of my head that I recall that don't lose to wipes or removal are usually graveyard centric. However, you do have some incidential lategame graveyard hate.
Either that, or pack graveyard hate of their own to limit your options. The deck will still work even without graveyards, but it becomes obvious when the targets are bad.
Oh yeah, go tall strategies with haste will wreck this list. If you decided to pit your Xenagod against it, then it would enjoy the reliance on sorcery speed answers. I actually think overall the reliance on Scarab to have instant speed answers is the achille's heel of this deck, as there are times where people can basically just go off unexpectedly even without including any combos.
The ones I would recommend are Recoil and Capsize. Gate to Phyrexia, although it shot up in price, is also an effective option. Counterspells are also an effective answer.
Some instant speed interaction would be good. I've been thinking about putting pongify. I do have 3 counterspells and Vedalken orrery, so my deck isn't totally without instant speed interaction.
Some instant speed interaction would be good. I've been thinking about putting pongify. I do have 3 counterspells and Vedalken orrery, so my deck isn't totally without instant speed interaction.
Speaking of weaknesses, Cursed Totem or Pithing Needle is not any more fun. Ground Seal was also a card that gave me fits today (I resorted to player removal at that point).
Edit: Found an interesting one right here: Ashnod's Transmogrant. Turn their artifact into a creature, then blow it up with a kill spell or a boardwipe. You could leave this on the board and put it on the stack the next time someone boardwipes. Also, it turns it to a creature permanently, so you can use it in response to someone trying to blow it up. The more I think about it, the more I like this card. There are always mana rocks on the field even if the torpor orb, cursed totem et. don't show up. So, it's not as narrow as it looks. Also searchable with Trinket Mage.
Guess my meta hasn't wizened up yet. I have yet to see any graveyard hate or activated ability hate yet. Good to know. I wonder how effective capsize is as an answer. To use that, buy it back and activate the god's ability, you'd need 10 mana. We can get there I guess, but dang. All Magic cards have some weakness. I think this deck is nice because it requires some very narrow cards to beat. Most people aren't going to put many graveyard hate and Pithing Needle type cards in their deck because it doesn't advance their board at all.
Compare that to a deck who's weakness is boardwipes or creature spot removal. Nearly every deck will have a few of those kinds of cards in it.
My point is, the weaknesses of these deck seem to be few and far between compared to some strategies.
I might consider adding a Nevinyrral's Disk in place of another boardwipe though. That would be a nice catch all answer to these, if it stays around long enough.
UB struggles with Artifacts and Enchantments naturally. Not sure what we can really do about that without simply having the deck built for Bounce/Discard/Stax from the ground up, like Paragon's list. As for graveyard hate: maybe it's just my experience, but most commonly I'll see basic additions like Bojuka Bog or Relic of Progenitus. One to three cards, if graveyard play is so prolific or problematic. Maybe a Leyline of the Void on occasion (and even then, usually part of a different plan). As for dedicated stax pieces... You guys have already mentioned pretty much everything that deals with them.
If I had to choose one boardwipe as an "answer all" button, I'd go Oblivion Stone. In doing so I think I'd convert some of my artifact ramp to searching for lands. Or at least more disposable/multipurpose ramp (Mind Stone, Hedron Archive, etc)
I too haven’t had a chance to play this deck in a while, but it’s good to see that the general plan is still working for others.
- Rotting Rats is a good catch. I did not think to search for more of this type of effect after Liliana’s Specter, but I will have to move some of these other guys up the list based on other reports.
- Mikaeus was one of the next things on my list to test here because it could operate without much risk of dumb infinite combos and still give enormous value. Glad to see it’s living up to expectations.
-Didn’t see if anyone else tried Kagemaro, First to Suffer yet. This is still my number one thing to try out.
Played another game the other night. 3-0 for victory since the upgrade! My victory was in no small part due to our lesser experienced friend letting me draw tons of spells off of Rhystic Study starting turn 3. Again I had the ability to combo off, but chose not to. I want to make sure this deck doesn't rely on the combo to win.
Phyrexian Arena has been great. I've seen some arguments for things like Read the Bones being better due to the amount of time it takes to reap your investment on Arena. However, this deck is in it for the long game, so Arena does well usually.
Arena of the Ancients finally showed up. It got blown up the turn after I played it. However the artifact sniper was playing his "All legendary themed deck" I think this card is really good. So good it will draw the hate. When they don't have that artifact removal though...
I was playing against Child of Alara. Funny enough, I kind of wanted a boardwipe because I was dominating the board, but only with my small power and toughness creatures. I needed more targets to "externalize." It's part of why I went with Rotting Rats despite it making me discard. I'm heavily considering smallpox going in. I want the 'yard to start filling up early, even when we are doing well and keeping all of our creatures on board. It's also making me reconsider psychic corrosion for an addition. I'm down to only 1 mill card down from 4-5. I think this could be a good second mill card.
Spellseeker was quite useful. I already had boardwipes, so I searched for Counterspell. Funny I hadn't considered how strong that little one-two is before.
Still very pleased with the deck. No big changes coming, maybe just a smallpox.
Played another game the other night. 3-0 for victory since the upgrade! My victory was in no small part due to our lesser experienced friend letting me draw tons of spells off of Rhystic Study starting turn 3. Again I had the ability to combo off, but chose not to. I want to make sure this deck doesn't rely on the combo to win.
Phyrexian Arena has been great. I've seen some arguments for things like Read the Bones being better due to the amount of time it takes to reap your investment on Arena. However, this deck is in it for the long game, so Arena does well usually.
Arena of the Ancients finally showed up. It got blown up the turn after I played it. However the artifact sniper was playing his "All legendary themed deck" I think this card is really good. So good it will draw the hate. When they don't have that artifact removal though...
I was playing against Child of Alara. Funny enough, I kind of wanted a boardwipe because I was dominating the board, but only with my small power and toughness creatures. I needed more targets to "externalize." It's part of why I went with Rotting Rats despite it making me discard. I'm heavily considering smallpox going in. I want the 'yard to start filling up early, even when we are doing well and keeping all of our creatures on board. It's also making me reconsider psychic corrosion for an addition. I'm down to only 1 mill card down from 4-5. I think this could be a good second mill card.
Spellseeker was quite useful. I already had boardwipes, so I searched for Counterspell. Funny I hadn't considered how strong that little one-two is before.
Still very pleased with the deck. No big changes coming, maybe just a smallpox.
Arena of the Ancients is one of those hit or miss cards. Generals that do not need to use the combat step or tap to use their ability are mostly unaffected by it, while cards that need to tap to activate their main ability or generals that grow huge and smash face are hurt by this card. Keep in mind if a vigilance legend is put on the battlefield after the arena hits the field, it would also have no effect. I would look at it the same way as Pithing Needle/Phyrexian Revoker, Torpor Orb and Cursed Totem in that they are very useful or useless.
My preference has leaned towards Read the Bones-esque draw lately, but the more I playtest my own god, the more I reconsider an Arena. Graveborn Muse has proven itself potent combined with The Scarab God's Scry Trigger. Basically getting to sculpt your draw step and ensure you hit dead cards less frequently.
Arena of the Ancients is definitely a meta call for you, as Paragon said. But as long as your card draw engine is going strong, having a single card dead on occasion isn't completely awful. The same applies to mill elements like Psychic Corrosion. Feeding the God has been less a problem in my experience than making sure I stay on top; I only have to Eternalize 2-4 cards before it starts overwhelming the table.
I haven't been posting much because the games were not flowing for me the past month. My first game back (4 player) I won.
Here's the list I settled on:
Just a refresher: the goal of this deck is to attrition out/control the opponents, or combo out with Triskelion and Mikaeus the unhallowed. I did win with the combo, sometime around turn 10-12?
The deck played out beautifully. As expected, the early cantrip creatures and Phyrexian Arena kept my cards flowing. The Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge deck was taken out early by another opponent (turn 5), who ended up at 80 life in the aftermath. Not deterred due to the triskelion in hand, I trekked onward. I was able to scry into a corpse conniesuer which put Mikaeus the unhallowed into my graveyard. I played Damnation as the 80 life Edgar Markov opponent was getting out of hand with creatures. After another boardwipe (played by edgar markov opponent) and some patience, I was able to combo out to close the game.
The deck performed beautifully. Rhystic Study showed up and was amazing of course. The cheap cantrip creatures really do more than you think on paper. I love them because they are chump block fodder that fill up the 'yard early. Simultaneously, they keep your hand full. Part of the reason I'm fine with Rotting Rats making me discard is that my hand gets ridiculous.
The deck keeps kicking ass in the long game, which is what it's meant to do. Also, 6 boardwipes alongside all of the tutors was necessary.
I really like the idea for this deck. I will be basing my comments on the above decklist and from a competitive standpoint.
First, I'm going to assume that you're operating under some sort of budget. Is this correct? If you are, then some of my suggestions/observations won't make sense or will be irrelevant to your list.
The Scarab God is a creature with an activated ability that is dependent on the number of creatures there are in all graveyards. That means the God will not be an infinite mana outlet and won't generally lend itself to a dedicated combo finish, as you've rightly built your decklist. To me, this indeed emphasizes the Control aspect of the decklist and all card choices should be selected with long-term value in mind.
Since the decklist is all about Control, anything that allows you to speed up your plays should be strongly considered. To this end, I would strongly suggest Mana Crypt, Mana Vault/Grim Monolith, and Thought Vessel. All of these artifact cards help to accelerate your plans and get you to your lategame faster than just a land drop per turn would allow. Additionally, The God (and your decklist generally) is a mana hungry deck. I would also recommend that you add Training Grounds. Reducing the cost of The God's ability will help you get more value out of graveyards faster.
There is a notable lack of Toxic Deluge. It's the fastest Wrath effect in the format and it's also one of the more effective since it gets around Indestructible. I highly recommend playing this card instead of In Garruk's Wake.
The Spiketail creatures might also be a good choice for you, seeing how they create Counterspell effects on a body that can help control the early game while being nice Eternalized bodies that help to make mana calculations complicated for your opponents.
Another notable omission is Venser, Shaper Savant. Is there a reason you aren't playing that card?
I think that adding a few sacrifice effects would be worthwhile to your deck so that you can get your own creatures into the 'yard at will. It will also help you to potentially get value of of those creatures before you inevitably wrath the board. I personally love Carrion Feeder, especially since it has synergy with The God. Sac effects will also make Skullclamp work MUCH harder for you.
An example list of how I would build The Scarab God is as follows:
There's 37 creatures in the deck by itself, which means that The God should have plenty of targets just from our own 'yard to be effective. I hope that the list, while budget-less, does provide another source of inspiration to you. A couple of cards that I'd like to try and squeeze in somehow would be: Duplicant, Shriekmaw, Grave Titan, Dragonlord Silumgar, and Phantasmal Image. Otherwise, I think it's a robust, creature-centric control list. One of the cool synergies of the list is Soldevi Adnate sacrificing the tokens of The God for mana; a token will retain the Converted Mana Cost of the exiled card and can thus add mana via the Adnate's ability (Rule 202.3A). That means the Adnate can generate a consistent amount of mana each game.
I want to reiterate that I think you have a great decklist as is. I love UB decks, so I love to offer my insights and suggestions whenever I can. My suggestions and comments are meant to inspire and improve, so I hope no offense is taken at my commentary!
Training grounds will be my next purchase for the deck. I love the card, just felt like there were some more critical things to grab first.
New list:
1 Siren Stormtamer
1 looter il-kor
1 Merfolk looter
1 Baleful Strix
1 dusk legion zealot
1 owl familiar
1 Walking Ballista
1 Champion of Wits
1 Stunt Double
1 Nekrataal
1 Hostage Taker
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
1 Gravedigger
1 Mulldrifter
1 Triskelion
1 Wurmcoil engine
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Demonlord Belzenlok
1 Grave Titan
Card Draw 8 (16)
1 Skullclamp
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Ponder
1 Read the bones
1 Compulsive Research
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Concentrate
1 Rush of Knowledge
1 Entomb
1 Vampiric tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Spellseeker
1 Trinket Mage
1 Trophy Mage
1 Corpse Connoisseur
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Final Parting
Ramp 10 (11)
1 Sol Ring
1 Fellwar Stone
1 mind stone
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Dimir Signet
1 Sword of the Animist
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Hedron Archive
1 Thran Dynamo
Boardwipes 5
1 Curse of the swine
1 cyclonic rift
1 Damnation
1 Life's Finale
1 In Garruk's Wake
Other 9
1 Mindcrank
1 Altar of dementia
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Swiftfoot boots
1 Counterspell
1 Arena of the Ancients
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Cauldron of Souls
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Sunken Hollow
1 command tower
1 watery grave
1 choked estuary
1 drowned catacomb
1 Darkwater Catacombs
1 temple of deceit
1 Dimir guildgate
1 jwar isle Refuge
1 Submerged boneyard
1 fetid pools
1 dismal backwater
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Bojuka bog
10 swamp
10 island
The combo:
Mikaeus, the unhallowed and Triskelion or Walking Ballista. We must play Triskelion or ballita from our hand, however Mikaeus can be resurrected via the scarab god and the combo still works. The idea is to deal infinite damage to all opponents. Triskelion enters the first time able to ping an opponent one time, then remove the remaining two counters to deal the damage to itself. REMEMBER THAT MIKAEUS GIVES NON-HUMANS +1/+1! In this combo, we must always save enough counters to kill triskelion. Walking ballista simply needs to save the last counter for itself, as it will be a 1/1 once the last counter is removed.
The deck has many ways to tutor this combo up.
Note that Mystical Tutor, or spellseeker can be used to tutor up entomb or vampiric tutor. Final Parting can put Mikaeus into the 'yard (as does entomb and Corpse Connisseur) and ballista/Triskelion into hand. Trophy Mage can search for Triskelion into hand.
Also of note, I added Arena of the Ancients. This is to combat the Jeleva deck, Voltron, and eldrazi commanders that frequent my meta. This card slots in nicely in this deck. Our commander continues to provide a ton of advantage even if tapped, while these problematic commanders don't.
Cauldron of souls went in too. I run a lot of boardwipes. This can help me save my creatures, especially the scarab god, from the wipes. Especially good with all of the etb effects present in my creatures. Glad to finally have found a home where this card shines.
I'm excited to add a bit of a combo theme to the deck, but not have it completely revolve around it. This will give me an out when things get too gummed up from control decks.
I'll update the "primer" section to reflect this change in a while.
1 looter il-kor
1 Merfolk looter
1 Wharf Infiltrator
1 Baleful Strix
1 dusk legion zealot
1 Skyscanner
1 Champion of Wits
1 Thassa, God of the Sea
1 Archaeomancer
1 Nekrataal
1 Hostage Taker
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
1 Fatestitcher
1 Gravedigger
1 consuming aberration
1 Mulldrifter
1 Triskelion
1 Wurmcoil engine
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Demonlord Belzenlok
1 Grave Titan
Card Draw/Filtering 9 (19)
1 Skullclamp
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Ponder
1 Night's Whisper
1 Read the bones
1 Compulsive Research
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Concentrate
1 Rush of Knowledge
1 Entomb
1 Vampiric tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Spellseeker
1 Trinket Mage
1 Final Parting
Ramp 10 (12)
1 Sol Ring
1 Fellwar Stone
1 mind stone
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Dimir Signet
1 coldsteel heart
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Hedron Archive
1 Thran Dynamo
Boardwipes 5
1 Curse of the swine
1 cyclonic rift
1 Damnation
1 Life's Finale
1 In Garruk's Wake
Other 8
1 Dread Summons
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Counterspell
1 Psychic Corrosion
1 Arena of the Ancients
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Army of the Damned
1 Temple of the False God
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Sunken Hollow
1 command tower
1 watery grave
1 choked estuary
1 drowned catacomb
1 Darkwater Catacombs
1 temple of deceit
1 Dimir guildgate
1 jwar isle Refuge
1 Submerged boneyard
1 fetid pools
1 dismal backwater
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Bojuka bog
10 swamp
10 island
I removed some tutors which were becoming redundant. I've added in some mill. There are obvious advantages to mill with the scarab god. It is especially relevant for me as I face off against a friend who uses Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge and Proteus Staff to stack his entire deck (which contains no creatures) in his desired order. Mill will help screw with his gameplan.
New mill cards:
Mindcrank seems like it just causes the opponents to focus on attacking me to prevent me from getting access to more creatures. Altar of Dementia didn't do enough work.
Archaeomancer should do some great work now that I have all of these cheap tutors. Returning boardwipes is nice too since I took a few out to make room for other stuff.
Thassa, God of the Sea This card seems obviously good for my deck. I like having creatures that draw or filter cards for me. Who doesn't like playing with a full grip of relevant cards?
Skyscanner Cheap cantrip creatures have been really nice for me. An easy early play that I don't mind blocking with to give the god fodder. Flying is relevant when it comes back as a 4/4.
Army of the Damned back in. The tutors are relevant here again. I also realized that I could use entomb to use this card's flashback ability from the yard. Another good target for archaeomancer too.
I've found that the deck was definitely skewed too heavily on creature control focus. Can't wait to see how this new incarnation goes. I may need to cut a land.
It could simply be my own experience - but Mindcrank is a well known combo piece. Generally, I avoid playing it when I can't immediately make use of it to either win, or set up behind the current board-stall.
Also, interesting that Consuming Aberration is working it's way into your build. It's on the way out in mine, along with Phenax, God of Deception. I focused my build around keeping a consistently lower cmc, so anything that costs 3+ can feel like it costs entirely too much mana for too trivial an impact. I'll post my list sometime later, been meaning to get around to that for a while.
I appreciate the low cmc comment. I keep working to lower that. I like having cheap creatures that provide value quickly and I don't mind boardwiping away. My list is still in it's teenage years of development in my opinion. It's starting to find it's identity, but still evolving quite a bit. I've changed the theme of the deck a few times now since it's incarnation.
Regarding Mindcrank; my meta doesn't use combos. I want my mill to be more useful in the early/mid game. With my tiny creatures, and generally saving the god until later, I just couldn't make people loose life fast enough, early enough. I slotted it out for the new Psychic Corrosion which seems much better in my opinion. This will get people milling right away the turn after it comes out. I have a few looting creatures and a ton of card draw, so this puppy should fire off quite a bit. Also, this card can't be worked around by everyone just focusing their attacks on me. When my mana count goes way up, and my opponents already have a few creatures in their 'yards, they have made packs not to attack each other when my mind crank was out. That scenario is just too risky.
Thanks for the comment. I look forward to seeing your list sometime!
If it's a meta call, good luck. I've always loved Mill, and Consuming Aberration is a pet card of mine. I originally had it in a Damia, Sage of Stone big mana deck. Being able to cast Villainous Wealth, Mind Grind, Exsanguinate, or Torment of Hailfire for X=20+ was effective, even if it got boring after a while. CA did good work for me there. In my Scarab God though, I can never justify playing it.
I'm usually between my personal group of friends and my local LGS and while most aren't playing a dedicated combo deck, many of us include them. I don't mind playing combo, but I have a personal restriction on how many tutors I'll let myself use. With this in mind, Mindcrank definitely isn't an effective way to mill for your group, and removing it is a good call. Combo or not, I'll recommend Altar of the Brood if you want incremental mill.
Playing an Altar in the first 3-4 turns of a long game can have a stupid impact. I wouldn't play it for ages, personally - thought it was awful and underwhelming for Commander. But after giving it a shot, it's not unusual for it to put 5-20 cards into each opponent's graveyard before someone pulls the trigger to remove it.
Anyway, I do like Altar of the Brood and I had it in before. I put in psychic corrosion recently and I thought it might be better. Looking at the 1 cost vs. 3 cost though, perhaps I should stick with altar after all.
Out of curiosity, how much work do Looter Il-kor and Merfolk Looter do for you? I'm looking to remove them from my build - they simply don't do enough, and topdecking them feels awful.
Looter Il-kor is especially worthwhile in my opinion as it has great evasion on it. It's also why I like Wharf-infiltrator and Balefulstrix. You just start popping off two cost creatures for card advantage and dig for a boardwipe. Let opponents develop board and play out commanders, then wipe. Next turn play god and start resurrecting your evasive creatures that come back as 4/4's and start going to town. Meanwhile, replaying those creatures refills your hand by drawing cards or at least letting you dig for tutors or more card draw. I may not need all 3 of the looters in there now that I've added Thassa, which seems better than merfolk looter.
Another aspect to these guys is playing out some early cards that will help me find lands. My deck hates missing land drops in the first 6 turns. It has a high mana curve, and I want to be able to activate the God's ability twice in one turn late game. I actually find my hand to get a bit crowded during games, which I like. You can get extra value by just discarding creatures, which almost makes it a draw card ability.
EDIT: I consider these looters, alongside cantrip creatures like skyscanner the bread and butter of my deck. I always have something to play early that helps with card advantage. A plethora of cheap creatures help me fill up my graveyard early, something I like to do. I want to have at least 1 creature in my yard before the god comes out. I see this deck as being a control deck at this point. It will be able to boardwipe when it wants to. Remove creatures when it wants to. Counter a spell occasionally. I'm generally trying to gain card and board advantage on my opponents. Keep wiping and killing off their commanders until it's just me, my god, and a ***** ton of creatures and cards in hand to start decimating. These bread and butter creatures keep me from dying to aggro decks, or blocking voltron commanders et. if I can't boardwipe soon enough. Later, they provide extra value as a 4/4 "can trip", usually with evasion.
I haven't gotten to test my deck much recently though. I'd like to see your list and gameplay theory.
I do have a lot of mill cards. I upped the number recently because I was missing them. I've talked about my creature heavy meta, and my friend's Jeleva deck that he is able to constantly stack his entire deck in the order he wants. Mill is a good way to mess with that plan. Also, I was missing dread summons. this card helped me win too many games before. Can't remember why I took it out.
It could just be personal preference: they tend to be too low impact for me to keep up unless they manage to survive several turns. The evasion is wonderful, but decks in my meta can outpace me rapidly if I'm relying on the combat step or a tap ability too often to filter cards. I think a big difference between our builds is obvious, though:
For my version, the majority of the deck falls into the 2-4 cmc range with Scarab God being the top end/engine. Filtering isn't as much of a problem for me because I play smaller creatures; I was more attracted to how TSG can make small dudes bigger and catch people off guard with it. Skyscanner is actually a great catch, and I'll definitely be trying it out.
Here's the list I settled on:
1 Rotting Rats
1 looter il-kor
1 Baleful Strix
1 dusk legion zealot
1 Phantasmal Image
1 Skyscanner
1 Phyrexian Rager
1 Merchant of Secrets
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Merciless Executioner
1 Thassa, God of the Sea
1 Liliana's Specter
1 Nekrataal
1 Hostage Taker
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
1 Clever Impersonator
1 Vindictive Lich
1 Fatestitcher
1 Mulldrifter
1 Bloodgift Demon
1 Triskelion
1 Wurmcoil engine
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Grave Titan
Card Draw/Filtering 7 (19)
1 Skullclamp
1 sensei's Divining top
1 Read the bones
1 Rhystic Study
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Concentrate
1 Vampiric tutor
1 Mystical tutor
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Spellseeker
1 Trinket Mage
1 Buried Alive
1 Corpse Connoisseur
Ramp 10 (12)
1 Sol Ring
1 Coldsteel heart
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Dimir Signet
1 Mind stone
1 Deranged assistant
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Thran Dynamo
Boardwipes 6
1 Curse of the swine
1 cyclonic rift
1 Damnation
1 Crux of Fate
1 Life's Finale
1 In Garruk's Wake
Other 7
1 Altar of the brood
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Counterspell
1 Arena of the Ancients
1 Dismiss
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Army of the Damned
1 Temple of the False God
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Sunken Hollow
1 command tower
1 watery grave
1 Underground River
1 choked estuary
1 drowned catacomb
1 Darkwater Catacombs
1 temple of deceit
1 jwar isle Refuge
1 Submerged boneyard
1 fetid pools
1 dismal backwater
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Memorial to Genius
10 swamp
9 island
Just a refresher: the goal of this deck is to attrition out/control the opponents, or combo out with Triskelion and Mikaeus the unhallowed. I did win with the combo, sometime around turn 10-12?
The deck played out beautifully. As expected, the early cantrip creatures and Phyrexian Arena kept my cards flowing. The Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge deck was taken out early by another opponent (turn 5), who ended up at 80 life in the aftermath. Not deterred due to the triskelion in hand, I trekked onward. I was able to scry into a corpse conniesuer which put Mikaeus the unhallowed into my graveyard. I played Damnation as the 80 life Edgar Markov opponent was getting out of hand with creatures. After another boardwipe (played by edgar markov opponent) and some patience, I was able to combo out to close the game.
The deck performed beautifully. Rhystic Study showed up and was amazing of course. The cheap cantrip creatures really do more than you think on paper. I love them because they are chump block fodder that fill up the 'yard early. Simultaneously, they keep your hand full. Part of the reason I'm fine with Rotting Rats making me discard is that my hand gets ridiculous.
The deck keeps kicking ass in the long game, which is what it's meant to do. Also, 6 boardwipes alongside all of the tutors was necessary.
The God is really pleasing me right now. I'm going to leave the decklist as is for the foreseeable future. Don't fix what isn't broke.
In both games, my opponents were really low on cards at the end. My hand was still decent, and I had plenty of targets in the 'yards both times. This is exactly how my deck is trying to steer the game. Boardwipe away their cards, bring their creatures back to haunt them later.
Noteworthy performances:
Buried Alive is great. With so many creatures, this card is like a swiss army knife for your graveyard. I tend to search for Mikaeus the unhallowed, which is good even when not trying to combo off.
Fleshbag Marauder and Merciless executioner were both nice. You can easily get 3+ targets into the graveyard with one of these bad boys.
Dismiss is the most recent addition. I prefer it to Disdainful Stroke which was my second choice for this slot. The cantrip aspect is obviously good and adds to the deck's card advantage theme. Also, I find myself often leaving up 4 mana to possibly "externalize" a creature on someone's end step before my next turn. Dismiss fits in nicely in these cases. Wait to see if you need to counter anything. If not, resurrect a creature with the God instead
Rotting Rats was a fine addition too. I was able to stash away a nice creature with it, while stripping my opponents of their dwindling cards. If I hadn't won through playing an Army of the Damned and making them lose a ton of life, I was in a position to make both of my opponents discard their two remaining cards through "externalizing" Rotting rats and Liliana's specter. These cards fit in great with my theme of gaining card advantage over my opponents. The more early creatures I can jam that deny my opponents their resources early, the better off the deck seems to be.
Dissipation Field was in because I couldn't find my Propaganda. It performed very well. Many times people avoided attacking me and stated so, because of the field. Perhaps it's better than propaganda?
Fatestitcher: It's nice that this guy is a zombie. I was super glad to have it in play against my friend's nefarious Jeleva deck. While I didn't get to use it against him, it was nice to have a way to shut down his commander. Also, I did use him to prevent some attacks I knew were coming at me. The ability to neuter an alpha strike is truly great in this deck of smaller creatures. The card plays defense when needed, then switches to offense once the tide has turned. I also used him to get through extra damage during my combat phase at times. My guess, this is probably the card that is easiest to underrate when looking at it. It's not just okay, or decent, it's REALLY good.
6 boardwipes seems to be the right number, if not possibly 7. My list can be in trouble if it doesn't draw one by mid/late game. I have always had access to a wipe when I really needed it in both games. Had to use 2 boardwipes in my second game to secure a victory.
Weaknesses are the high number of extremely low power creatures in the early game. A really good aggro deck might sneak under this one. If multiple opponents target me in the early game, which is much more likely to happen the more wins The God nabs, that could be a problem. Luckily, The scarab god is a force to be reckoned with as a blocker and the deck can get him out by turn 4 almost always. However, the ideal situation to me seems to be to hold off on playing the God until after there are at least a few good targets in the graveyard.
Another weakness may be the god's ability to finish off games fast enough, once I've stripped my opponents of most of their resources. Trying to beat down with mostly 4/4's is a slow process to win. On the other hand, the deck can start steam rolling as I get more zombies out round after round in the late game. Those life loss triggers really start to add up, especially when scrying so deep every turn.
My deck usually runs a full grip of cards or close to it until turn 5-6. The card advantage of this deck is so crazy that I have to find lines to be able to play two spells in one turn asap, so that I can play a nice concentrate or Phyrexian arena or Mulldrifter et. It's a really good feeling to have more cards than you know what to do with. Unlike other my other edh decks, this one never has to try and hold back some creatures/spells to hedge against boardwipes. I may need to add a Reliquary Tower and Expedition Map package to the deck.
Hope y'all enjoyed the breakdown!
Some strategies off the top of my head that I recall that don't lose to wipes or removal are usually graveyard centric. However, you do have some incidential lategame graveyard hate.
Either that, or pack graveyard hate of their own to limit your options. The deck will still work even without graveyards, but it becomes obvious when the targets are bad.
Oh yeah, go tall strategies with haste will wreck this list. If you decided to pit your Xenagod against it, then it would enjoy the reliance on sorcery speed answers. I actually think overall the reliance on Scarab to have instant speed answers is the achille's heel of this deck, as there are times where people can basically just go off unexpectedly even without including any combos.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
The ones I would recommend are Recoil and Capsize. Gate to Phyrexia, although it shot up in price, is also an effective option. Counterspells are also an effective answer.
Boompile, Oblivion Stone, rachet bomb, unstable obelisk, Nevinyrall's Disk. Not much to be done about it. Every deck has a weakness. black and blue have the hardest time destroying artifacts traditionally.
Some instant speed interaction would be good. I've been thinking about putting pongify. I do have 3 counterspells and Vedalken orrery, so my deck isn't totally without instant speed interaction.
Speaking of weaknesses, Cursed Totem or Pithing Needle is not any more fun. Ground Seal was also a card that gave me fits today (I resorted to player removal at that point).
Guess my meta hasn't wizened up yet. I have yet to see any graveyard hate or activated ability hate yet. Good to know. I wonder how effective capsize is as an answer. To use that, buy it back and activate the god's ability, you'd need 10 mana. We can get there I guess, but dang. All Magic cards have some weakness. I think this deck is nice because it requires some very narrow cards to beat. Most people aren't going to put many graveyard hate and Pithing Needle type cards in their deck because it doesn't advance their board at all.
Compare that to a deck who's weakness is boardwipes or creature spot removal. Nearly every deck will have a few of those kinds of cards in it.
My point is, the weaknesses of these deck seem to be few and far between compared to some strategies.
I might consider adding a Nevinyrral's Disk in place of another boardwipe though. That would be a nice catch all answer to these, if it stays around long enough.
Dispossess can work too if you know your meta is full of these hate cards. Pretty narrow though, I think Ashnod's Transmogrant is better.
If I had to choose one boardwipe as an "answer all" button, I'd go Oblivion Stone. In doing so I think I'd convert some of my artifact ramp to searching for lands. Or at least more disposable/multipurpose ramp (Mind Stone, Hedron Archive, etc)
- Rotting Rats is a good catch. I did not think to search for more of this type of effect after Liliana’s Specter, but I will have to move some of these other guys up the list based on other reports.
- Mikaeus was one of the next things on my list to test here because it could operate without much risk of dumb infinite combos and still give enormous value. Glad to see it’s living up to expectations.
-Didn’t see if anyone else tried Kagemaro, First to Suffer yet. This is still my number one thing to try out.
Yeva (88/92 foils)
Raff
Scarab
Rakdos
Wort ($50 budget, 94/97 foils)
Trostani
Phyrexian Arena has been great. I've seen some arguments for things like Read the Bones being better due to the amount of time it takes to reap your investment on Arena. However, this deck is in it for the long game, so Arena does well usually.
Arena of the Ancients finally showed up. It got blown up the turn after I played it. However the artifact sniper was playing his "All legendary themed deck" I think this card is really good. So good it will draw the hate. When they don't have that artifact removal though...
I was playing against Child of Alara. Funny enough, I kind of wanted a boardwipe because I was dominating the board, but only with my small power and toughness creatures. I needed more targets to "externalize." It's part of why I went with Rotting Rats despite it making me discard. I'm heavily considering smallpox going in. I want the 'yard to start filling up early, even when we are doing well and keeping all of our creatures on board. It's also making me reconsider psychic corrosion for an addition. I'm down to only 1 mill card down from 4-5. I think this could be a good second mill card.
Spellseeker was quite useful. I already had boardwipes, so I searched for Counterspell. Funny I hadn't considered how strong that little one-two is before.
Still very pleased with the deck. No big changes coming, maybe just a smallpox.
Arena of the Ancients is one of those hit or miss cards. Generals that do not need to use the combat step or tap to use their ability are mostly unaffected by it, while cards that need to tap to activate their main ability or generals that grow huge and smash face are hurt by this card. Keep in mind if a vigilance legend is put on the battlefield after the arena hits the field, it would also have no effect. I would look at it the same way as Pithing Needle/Phyrexian Revoker, Torpor Orb and Cursed Totem in that they are very useful or useless.
Arena of the Ancients is definitely a meta call for you, as Paragon said. But as long as your card draw engine is going strong, having a single card dead on occasion isn't completely awful. The same applies to mill elements like Psychic Corrosion. Feeding the God has been less a problem in my experience than making sure I stay on top; I only have to Eternalize 2-4 cards before it starts overwhelming the table.
I really like the idea for this deck. I will be basing my comments on the above decklist and from a competitive standpoint.
First, I'm going to assume that you're operating under some sort of budget. Is this correct? If you are, then some of my suggestions/observations won't make sense or will be irrelevant to your list.
The Scarab God is a creature with an activated ability that is dependent on the number of creatures there are in all graveyards. That means the God will not be an infinite mana outlet and won't generally lend itself to a dedicated combo finish, as you've rightly built your decklist. To me, this indeed emphasizes the Control aspect of the decklist and all card choices should be selected with long-term value in mind.
Since the decklist is all about Control, anything that allows you to speed up your plays should be strongly considered. To this end, I would strongly suggest Mana Crypt, Mana Vault/Grim Monolith, and Thought Vessel. All of these artifact cards help to accelerate your plans and get you to your lategame faster than just a land drop per turn would allow. Additionally, The God (and your decklist generally) is a mana hungry deck. I would also recommend that you add Training Grounds. Reducing the cost of The God's ability will help you get more value out of graveyards faster.
There is a notable lack of Toxic Deluge. It's the fastest Wrath effect in the format and it's also one of the more effective since it gets around Indestructible. I highly recommend playing this card instead of In Garruk's Wake.
The Spiketail creatures might also be a good choice for you, seeing how they create Counterspell effects on a body that can help control the early game while being nice Eternalized bodies that help to make mana calculations complicated for your opponents.
Another notable omission is Venser, Shaper Savant. Is there a reason you aren't playing that card?
I think that adding a few sacrifice effects would be worthwhile to your deck so that you can get your own creatures into the 'yard at will. It will also help you to potentially get value of of those creatures before you inevitably wrath the board. I personally love Carrion Feeder, especially since it has synergy with The God. Sac effects will also make Skullclamp work MUCH harder for you.
An example list of how I would build The Scarab God is as follows:
5x The Scarab God
Mana Sources (13)
0x Mana Crypt
1x Sol Ring
2x Coldsteel Heart
2x Dimir Signet
2x Talisman of Dominance
2x Thought Vessel
2x Grim Monolith
2x Aphetto Alchemist
2x Soldevi Adnate
3x Worn Powerstone
4x Solemn Simulacrum
4x Crypt Ghast
5x Gilded Lotus
Tutors (9)
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Mystical Tutor
2x Demonic Tutor
2x Diabolic Intent
3x Spellseeker
3x Trinket Mage
3x Buried Alive
5x Sidisi, Undead Vizier
8x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
Combo Pieces/Utility (6)
0x Walking Ballista
1x Training Grounds
1x Altar of the Brood
4x Clever Impersonator
6x Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
6x Wurmcoil Engine
1x Carrion Feeder
2x Altar of Dementia
3x Phyrexian Ghoul
5x Ghoulcaller Gisa
5x Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
Counterspells (6)
2x Arcane Denial
2x Voidmage Prodigy
3x Spiketail Drakeling
3x Daring Apprentice
4x Venser, Shaper Savant
4x Glen Elendra Archmage
Removal (14)
1x Rapid Hybridization
2x Black Sun's Zenith
2x Cyclonic Rift
3x Fleshbag Marauder
3x Merciless Executioner
3x Toxic Deluge
4x Ravenous Chupacabra
4x Hostage Taker
4x Vindictive Lich
4x Sower of Temptation
4x Damnation
6x Noxious Gearhulk
6x Life's Finale
7x Overseer of the Damned
Card Draw (11)
1x Skullclamp
1x Hapless Researcher
1x Cryptbreaker
2x Baleful Strix
2x Dusk Legion Zealot
3x Phyrexian Rager
3x Merchant of Secrets
3x Liliana's Specter
3x Rhystic Study
4x Graveborn Muse
5x Mulldrifter
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Cephalid Coliseum
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Dimir Aqueduct
1x Command Tower
1x Underground Sea
1x Watery Grave
1x Fetid Pools
1x Sunken Hollow
1x Drowned Catacombs
1x Sunken Ruins
1x Underground River
1x Choked Estuary
1x Polluted Delta
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Marsh Flats
9x Swamp
8x Island
There's 37 creatures in the deck by itself, which means that The God should have plenty of targets just from our own 'yard to be effective. I hope that the list, while budget-less, does provide another source of inspiration to you. A couple of cards that I'd like to try and squeeze in somehow would be: Duplicant, Shriekmaw, Grave Titan, Dragonlord Silumgar, and Phantasmal Image. Otherwise, I think it's a robust, creature-centric control list. One of the cool synergies of the list is Soldevi Adnate sacrificing the tokens of The God for mana; a token will retain the Converted Mana Cost of the exiled card and can thus add mana via the Adnate's ability (Rule 202.3A). That means the Adnate can generate a consistent amount of mana each game.
I want to reiterate that I think you have a great decklist as is. I love UB decks, so I love to offer my insights and suggestions whenever I can. My suggestions and comments are meant to inspire and improve, so I hope no offense is taken at my commentary!
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager