In the store I go to we have a group of us who play EDH together often. A couple of the people suggested that we get 4 of us to join in on a "League" of sorts with the new C18 decks. That is, we would each get 1 deck, we would play at least 2 games a week with them, we could upgrade the decks as we want but only get a budget of $20 a week, and we play for monthly prizes. The first night we had to play with unaltered decks and that occurred last Friday on release.
We each picked our preferred deck and luckily none of our preferred decks overlapped. I really wanted the Lord Windgrace deck so I am happy I got to play it.
I decided to open up this thread to keep track of my changes as well as maybe summarize some games we play just to give an idea of the way some of the decks play together, even after changes have been made.
Here is the current list. I will keep updating the list as I make changes:
The first night, we played 3 games. In the first game, I was really slow in getting mana and had a hard time making any waves to start with. The Aminatou player ended up casting Army of the Damned and getting a bunch of tokens. I did Bojuka Bog them to prevent them from Flashing it back, but we still had 13 tokens to deal with. We slowly worked through a few of them, but it was still a lot to deal with. And the decks seem somewhat lacking in board wipes though Windgrace has a few. I was able to save the Saheeli player by destroying a creature attacking them and they ended up at one life. I did this as we really needed all of us to deal with the Aminatou's board state.
Eventually, I drew into a Chain Reaction which dealt with everything but a Bruna controlled by the Estrid player as it had Totem Armor. I was able to deal with that a little later and ended up closing out the game with ramp and Retreat to Hagra and a few other things. The rest of the game went pretty well and I ended up winning. No other games were really a "big play" we had to deal with like the Army of the Damned.
The next game we all basically got stomped by the Estrid player. They had a bunch of draw and were able to keep a full board state. The rest of us were horribly mana screwed and we were all at about 5 lands max while Estrid player was at a lot more. This one was not much of a game for the rest of us, but it was still a fair game and we all saw the power of the Estrid deck when it got to go off.
The third game was another that I won and it was mostly off the back of Avenger of Zendikar. I was able to ramp and keep ramping and ended up with 14 6/7 plant tokens. Aminatou was killed fairly early (I don't remember if I or someone else killed them) and the tokens cleaned up the other two.
I don't think either the Aminatou deck or the Saheeli deck really got to do its thing, but Aminatou was doing much better overall. I think the Saheeli player was just very unlucky and never did anything towards its theme. I am hoping to see the updates that player makes and I am hoping it plays a bit better this coming week.
As an aside, I was pretty disappointed in that the Lord Windgrace deck did not have more new cards that were "lands matter". There are a few reprints that are good, but I would have liked to see new ones. The deck should have had Crop Rotation so, as seen below, this is one of the first inclusions in this round of changes.
Also, Nesting Dragon is a beast and I am going to pick up at least one more. Overall, I really like the deck (even after some disappointment) and I am excited to continue tweaking it as time goes on. I have never gotten a good Jund deck built even with a few different attempts. At least, not one that I really wanted to keep built and I am hoping I can buck that trend with this deck.
Here are the changes for this round. Since we have a budget each week, I am also going to include the card prices of each. Since I only buy foils, my group has agreed to let me use the TCGPlayer price listed on Scryfall for my cards even though the actual card I get is worth much more. I use Scryfall since they have a fantastic API to make it easier to get prices for cards for something like this. I wrote a program that takes a list of cards and gets the lowest price across all versions. They do tend to be a couple cents above TCGPlayer so I don't think I am getting an advantage by using their prices.
I'm doing almost the exact same thing with a small group, and I also got this deck to start out with. The only differences are that we picked $25 as our arbitrary round budget each week, we get an extra $5 per kill, and we used SCG prices rounded to the nearest $0.25 for easy mathing. I was also going to post a similar thread once we got started.
Glad to see that Nesting Dragon was as good as advertised. Red has really gotten some much-needed studs in the last few sets.
I actually wanted $15 for our budget each week so the deck's didn't change a lot from one week to the next, but $20 seems fine. $25 seems high to me, but I am sure there will be some time where I wish we had that
My next round of additions for next week already have Gitrog and Eternal Witness slotted in. That will take up most of my budget. I wanted Constant Mists but that spiked in the last 2 weeks so I will probably put that off until the week after. I am trying to do 1 card around $10 (or maybe 2 around $13 or $14) and then the rest being smaller amounts so I can still change the deck up a bit each week and get rid of less optimal cards. I can already see I have way too much ramp in the deck and I don't like that the deck starts at 43 lands. I will end up cutting some cards in both categories next time. I know I added ramp but I prefer creature based ramp over spell based, and it will make even more sense when Phyrexian Reclamation makes it into the mix.
Hopefully your playgroup has fun with the idea. I am hoping ours does as well once we get more into the swing of things.
Yeah, it looks like Omnath also spiked recently from about $3-4 to about $10. That will definitely push everything back a week, unless I go on a killing spree.
I also briefly toyed with the idea of using Gyrus as the commander and turning it into a simple value-based Jund list with all the low-cost ETB creatures out there, but that seems so boring compared to lands.
Are you going to try and expand the actual lands package beyond just fixing and fetching? I've looked into a bunch of those options, but it seems that Modern has driven them way beyond league budgets.
Does your group limit the number of individual cards you can change each round/week? We limited ourselves to 10 cards at first, decreasing by 1 each subsequent round, and ending at 2.
We played our games this week last night and had a blast. The Saheeli player was able to get their deck to work the second game and was able to take it down. The Estrid player (who was playing Tuvasa as the general) took down game 1.
I was able to keep things in check most of game 1 and ended up killing the Aminatou player (who was running Yennet as the general) with a Lavalanche and a big Spider beefed up with Bloodrush from Rubblehulk. I did this because they had me at 12 commander damage with a 6 power flyer and one of the enchantments was from the Tuvasa player. I was afraid that they could beef it up enough to just kill me outright. I could have also gone for Tuvasa as they had tapped out to play their general (for the 7th time I believe) and I didn't think they were as big a threat. I was dead wrong. They untappped, loaded up their general with Auras and swung out at me. I barely stayed alive, but I couldn't deal with it. I should have just taken that player out and tried to deal with Yennet later.
The second game, the Saheeli player got Saheeli's ultimate off fairly early with a Myr Battlesphere and Sharding Sphinx on the field. I was able to deal with the Sphinx luckily, but could not deal with the rest. That Ult ended up winning them the game later in the round (along with a lot of other well timed spells) due to the number of tokens from the Battlesphere as well as the support cards they had.
The Yennet player kind of got screwed over since I had to cast Decimate and Windgrace's Judgment early on and took out their general both times. They really couldn't get a foothold to keep in the game.
I know what cards I want next, but I get the prices on the weekend so I will update this post at that time in case the prices drastically change by then.
Yeah, it looks like Omnath also spiked recently from about $3-4 to about $10. That will definitely push everything back a week, unless I go on a killing spree.
I know how you feel. Constant Mists went from $3 to $7 so that takes a chunk of my budget. It will be a week or two before I get that card added.
I also briefly toyed with the idea of using Gyrus as the commander and turning it into a simple value-based Jund list with all the low-cost ETB creatures out there, but that seems so boring compared to lands.
I have thought of changing the general, but the other 2 do seem boring as you suggested. Windgrace is awesome so I have no real desire to change him any time soon.
Are you going to try and expand the actual lands package beyond just fixing and fetching? I've looked into a bunch of those options, but it seems that Modern has driven them way beyond league budgets.
I will update it a little here and there but I don't plan on making sweeping changes beyond fixing. Miren and High Market are added and those are the big two for me. Phyrexian Tower may come later and Diamond Valley is too far out of budget for this deck. Once our league is done (probably when next year's decks release) I will fully update it with other lands since I actually like this deck enough that I am guessing I might have finally found a Jund deck to keep around. I might also decide to put the Stage-Depths combo in at some point.
Does your group limit the number of individual cards you can change each round/week? We limited ourselves to 10 cards at first, decreasing by 1 each subsequent round, and ending at 2.
No. We limited it to just the dollar amount. We felt that would keep the changes slow enough eventually and I think it will. Our rules are:
1) $20 a week
2) Any portion of the budget not used, carries over to the next week
3) Any time a card is added and then removed, it can be added again later at no cost to the weekly budget
4) We did this to allow for cards to be swapped without being too detrimental to the goal. That is, we don't want to lock people into cards or punish
them for trying to add or remove the same card as they figure out the deck.
Here are my changes to the deck for week 3 (the second week with changes). We played on Monday instead of Friday this week so we agreed that we could change the deck any time this week to prepare for next week:
This week was mostly about getting rid of a bunch of superfluous ramp cards (mostly the worst ones) and focus a bit more on having some power in the deck. Bane of Progress is here because it is a great card normally and it shuts down the Enchantress and Artifact decks pretty hard. B. Act is another wrath which Jund Charm can be as well. The Charm also acts as grave hate when needed. I don't think I will use the counter mode all that often.
Borborygmos and the Gitrog Monster are beaters with additional effects. Mina and Denn helps with ramp and gives my dudes trample to help push though some damage. Reclamation gets my creatures back and Momentous Fall is card draw and life gain when I need it while also preventing something from getting exiled.
I also cut a number of colorless producing lands for Basics. I didn't want to go too overboard, but some of the ones enter tapped and slow me down and then don't do enough to warrant their inclusion. Basics, especially with the ramp I have, are generally better in those slots.
I played a few games yesterday and Friday (yesterday was our actual "League Night") and it is still working well. On Friday, I just played with the Saheeli player for a game or two and then played another game with another EDH player not in our league. In the 1v1 game, Borborygmos Enraged was an all star. He did 15 damage on his own since I somehow ended up with 4 cards in my hand and all were lands. Turntimber Sower helped out here as I got 4 Plants and then sacrificed 3 to get a land back to deal another 3 damage. This interaction is the sole reason I have decided to keep this card in the deck though it does work out with Gitrog too.
Last night I won the first game mostly off the back of Avenger of Zendikar. I ended up with 55 power on the board (or somewhere around there) and took out the Saheeli player one turn and then the other two the next turn. The major issue I had at this time was that the Tuvasa player had a creature enchanted with Indestructibility and Pariah which meant we had been unable to attack into them for a long time. On the turn I won, I top decked Consign to Dust and was able to destroy the Pariah and a Lightmine Field they had which allowed me to deal enough damage to both players.
The next game, the Tuvasa player won. They had a lot of things going on and they have made a lot of good progress with their deck as one would expect with Enchantments. Saheeli is also sitting in a good spot with their deck though they haven't won often. I think they have the power in their deck; its just that they have been somewhat unlucky so far because the deck wants to be aggressive so if they over-extend and the board gets wiped, it is difficult to rebuild.
Unfortunately, the Aminatou/Yennet player is having a tough time of it. I am not sure if the deck is just difficult to modify to a working version or if the generals are "traps" in the sense of trying to build around them too much doesn't work because they don't work well for that or what the issue is. I am convinced they *can* work, but it may take a bit more thought than the other 3. I believe that player is working to tweak their deck further so hopefully the next few weeks are a bit more successful for them.
I have gotten my newest updates made to the deck, but I will again wait to post them until Friday as that is when I want to get the updated prices on the cards.
MLD is pretty good in this.. Jokulhaups for example is a great card.. Don't think it's an expensive card either...
No. Enough people are fine with MLD. I am not and even if I had a deck built to take advantage of it, I am still not going to run it. Interestingly, I was playing a game last night with Ephara and an opponent (playing Lord Windgrace) cast Obliterate. I had Teferi's Protection so they effectively just handed me the game (they also knew I had the Protection). And, if I didn't have it, we would have been all set back to nothing while they slowly ticked Windgrace down to get their lands back. The game was actually going pretty well up until that point and I was definitely not in the lead by any stretch (I had no counter magic and I grabbed Protection off Archaeomancer because I was worried about dying).
I understand that this anecdote doesn't really speak to the power level of the card; it speaks more to the mistake of the Lord Windgrace player in playing it. However, it is not a strategy I enjoy playing against and it is definitely not one I am going to use.
For mana ramp/more land enablers I would say Wayward Swordtooth is awesome and fairly cheap (though it's price is spiking, wasn't even half what it costs now before these decks came out I believe).. Splendid reclamation is also a card I would suggest that shouldn't cost to much.. specialy if going the MLD route.. ^^
I thought about Wayward Swordtooth though Oracle of Mul Daya is much better. I have decided against both for now. I have The Gitrog Monster and Mina and Denn to help in this department and Mina and Denn give me lands in my hand as needed to discard to Windgrace or Borborygmos. I did add Splendid Reclamation in my last round of changes which I will be posting sometime tomorrow probably.
Indeed Titania, Gitrog and Omnath are pretty much the bread and butter of the deck, but all of those are not that cheap I believe... (I already owned those luckily.. :P)
I own these as well, but I have no intention of adding Omnath. I might add Titania later so that is definitely a good suggestion. Gitrog was added in my second round of changes as the synergy with Lord Windgrace and Borborygmos (and Turntimber Sower for that matter) is pretty good.
Scapeshift has actually decreased in price due to the reprint, might be a good time to get one now... (might spike again..)
Also Realms Uncharted is also a great card...
I don't like Scapeshift for a number of reasons. It really only helps with Landfall (Nesting Dragon, Baloths, and Avenger are the only three) and I don't think it is worth the slot since the lands I am getting right now are mostly just mana producing lands. I do like the suggestion of Realms Uncharted though and I will have to see how I want to proceed with that. Once we get further into the League, I may add that with Crucible and Ramunap Excavator. Even without those, World Shaper and Splendid Reclamation can get me all 4 lands anyway and no matter what lands I get I can use them for Windgrace or Borborygmos. As I am typing this out, I am starting to become more convinced that Realms Uncharted should be in the deck.
The more I think about this, the more I think that this deck will eventually boil down to a few silver bullet cards...Ramunap Excavator, Bane of Progress, Gitrog, Omnath, Titania, etc. All of these suggest adding in more ways to reliably find them, such as Birthing Pod, Natural Order, Chord of Calling, and Green Sun's Zenith. Unfortunately, none of these tutors are very budget-friendly. The closest cheap options I could find are Eldritch Evolution, Fierce Empath, and maybe Primal Command, but none of those are very exciting. I'm curious if anyone else thinks this is worth spending some or all of the budget on, or if it's just too pricey for the given conditions.
EDIT: @Realms Uncharted: it's value seems dependent on the number of utility lands that you can run. If you load up right away with Dark Depths, Valakut, etc, then it's going to be excellent. However, if your best lands are a couple fetches and some bad duals, it's probably not worth the spot.
EDIT: @Realms Uncharted: it's value seems dependent on the number of utility lands that you can run. If you load up right away with Dark Depths, Valakut, etc, then it's going to be excellent. However, if your best lands are a couple fetches and some bad duals, it's probably not worth the spot.
There are 3 things I can see that card really doing for me:
1) Triggering Gitrog to get a "free" card draw (it triggers Turntimber Sower too if that ever matters)
2) It gives me 2 lands to discard to Borborygmos and in that case, I don't care what the lands are
3) It gives me Miren which I should be able to get from my graveyard with Windgrace since it is basically guaranteed to be put into the graveyard
Alone, each of those things are pretty weak, but giving a number of options for different scenarios isn't the worst thing in the world. Maybe I am looking forward to the future too much as my current landbase isn't too exciting, but I do like the card.
About Scapeshift I guess fair point.. I run it in mine and I can tell you with Titania or Gitrog in play it's pretty nuts...
About Splendid Reclamation I can say it's prolly better than Scapeshift and I would defo. add that if not adding Scapeshift... ^^
Had a game where I was stuck on 4 lands vs opponents 8 mind you... I played Squandered Resources.. had exploration in play also.. Oracle of Muldaya as wel.. but she didn't do anything and got wrathed away... Next turn I sac a land.. to make mana after tapping.. Cast Titania.. return the land.. Sac it again and the other 3 to make mana with Squandered Getting 4 tokens.. play Splendid Reclamation.. Get back my lands... Sac the lands again to cast windgrace (getting at 8 tokens) and return 2 lands.. sac to leave 1 land in play and use life from the loam.. get lands back in hand and play 2 of them... cast a spell ditching Anger... saccing my lands again ( now I have 11 tokens..) with my 11 tokens I attack.. Along with Titania.. making it 12 5atk creatures... Killing one player and leaving one realy crippled at 16 life...
I can see the benefit with Titania definitely, but it only gets you one card with Gitrog so the synergy there is pretty weak. However, the Titania interaction is pretty solid. I have decided to pick one up now since the foils are cheap(-ish) and I don't want to get caught when they go back up. That way, if I ever do get to putting Titania in I can see if I want Scapeshift too. I do like the Synergy there.
One nice tech I have in my future Lord Windgrace is Vengeful Pharaoh. It's there to be thrown to the GY, then kill a creature that dealt damage to you or Windgrace. Then it can be done over and over again.
I decided to get rid of the bouncelands (Rot Farm comes out next week) and put in better lands to fetch off my various ramp cards. I also cut some of the worse creatures and other spells that I did not enjoy playing with or felt were underperforming.
In the adds, I added better creatures, a couple ways to deal with mass LD if needed, better lands, and some better removal. I have other removal coming in later, but Terminate is the one I could add now.
I played a game tonight and ended up losing (again) to Tuvasa. I had a chance to kill their only creature and did not take it and they went off by loading it up with 7 auras, 2 of which were Pariah and Indestructibility. I felt I would be fine since I have 2 wraths in hand, but I couldn't get past those 2 cards. This is the second time this has happened so I know in the future to work to keep them off a creature as much as possible.
I feel like Gaze of Granite would do wonders for killing all those auras and pesky permanents.
I'm very confused as to Protean Hulk - A. how is it this cheap? B. what does it do for your deck? C. how is it better and more consistent than Worm Harvest? Centaur Vinecrasher?
I feel like Gaze of Granite would do wonders for killing all those auras and pesky permanents.
You are right. That is why I haven't cut it from the original list
I'm very confused as to Protean Hulk - A. how is it this cheap? B. what does it do for your deck? C. how is it better and more consistent than Worm Harvest? Centaur Vinecrasher?
A) It is cheap because it was reprinted.
B) I use it for an answer. Just the other day, I used it to get my Bane of Progress to blow up the opponents' Artifacts and Enchantments. I also used it to get a couple utility creatures at Instant timing when I need them (Agent of Erebos is a good one). I will use it to get Phyrexian Delver if I need to reanimate something at Instant timing. The creature is there for not losing more so than winning.
C) If the comparison is the benefit of one over the other as a Win Condition, Worm Harvest and Centaur Vinecrasher have the Hulk beat. But, as I explained above, the Hulk is not a win-con and I don't compare it as such. Of my win-cons, these 2 seemed the weakest. Importantly, in the case of Worm Harvest (and Avenger of Zendikar for that matter), I am not a huge fan of swarming with small tokens. I like Baloths. I am thinking about Omnath. But smaller tokens are not interesting to me. Avenger is actually on the chopping block for Omnath for this reason.
I cut the deck down to 40 lands. This may be too few for this type of deck but I don't like having 42 lands in a deck. I may have to revisit this and go back up to 41 depending on how this plays. For now though, I think this is the right number. The lands I did get rid of work well with Gitrog but so do the ones I added. I just don't like having that many that enter tapped and I didn't care enough about Fengraf getting me back a creature. Producing only colorless was a downside too.
I added in Delver to reanimate, Realms Uncharted to get me lands when needed (see previous posts for other reasons for it), Wildest Dreams since it looks like it can do well to get me a bunch of stuff back (mostly lands for Borborygmos is my thought), Constant Mists to give me a way to survive an alpha strike from the Artifact and Enchantment players, and finally Into the Core because I needed a way to exile Darksteel Forge and this and World Breaker were the best options. This one is cheaper (mana cost-wise) and it is an Instant so I am going to give it a try.
We played one game with this week's lists last night and sadly I have very little to report on them. Even with still being at 40 lands, I got mana screwed pretty bad. It took forever to get to my red mana and I missed a bunch of land drops. By the time I even started to do something, I was too far in the hole to survive. I honestly don't even remember a lot about how the game ended since I was watching but not really invested in paying attention.
I don't think a single data point is enough to say I went too low on mana with cutting 2 lands and Sol Ring, but I want to record it as it is possible it is a mistake and I will have to revert it in the future. I don't think we will play next week so I will update my list next Friday, but a new game summary won't come along until the week after.
This update has 2 week's worth of changes. We ended the first month and played the first night of the second month last night. As such, the changes for last night are included here and the changes for next week are included as well. The first month went very well for this deck. I won 4 games (I tied with the Tuvasa player) and I had 12 head shots (the Tuvasa player had 10). Overall, this deck and Enchantments were pretty dominant the first month and I think that is more because of the ease in upgrading them for cheap compared to the others as well as the decent power level out of the box.
Now that we are in the second month, I expect Saheeli and Aminatou to make more of a showing in terms of wins and head shots. Aminatou, in fact, won one of our games last night (though I contend that they kind of stole it on luck which I will describe below). In any case, the decks are evolving and people are doing well with them though the Saheeli player is still having a bit of a hard time as their strategy is unfortunately easy to hate out. And, they seem to get mana screwed fairly often so hopefully they are able to get over the current slump they are in.
Here are the changes I had slotted for last night:
A quick note on these changes: we decided somewhat late to allow changes for last night as it was a different night than normal and we weren't sure if we wanted last night to be the start of a new "season" or month. As such, I ended up not actually having time to get these changes made so the games I played were played without these changes in place
We played 2 games last night. The first game took forever to play as there were a lot of board wipes in the game and me and Saheeli didn't often have a strong board state. Saheeli had a lot of small creatures and I had 1 or 2 big creatures. I eventually got Borborygmos and Multani and Borborygmos was answered pretty quickly and exiled from my graveyard. Multani is the reason I almost won the game though. The game went on and on and I eventually became the Monarch by stealing it from the Tuvasa player. I then tried to get my Multani down only to have it destroyed a bunch of times. I think I cast him about 8-10 times that game. And, I was doing so towards the end so I would cast him and not be able to attack and he would die before my next turn. Eventually, because of the Monarch, I ended up just drawing out of my deck and losing when it was just me and Aminatou left. I killed Tuvasa and Aminatou killed Saheeli.
The second game went much better. I started off with a ton of ramp. I had 3 ramp creatures and Temur Sabertooth so I just bounced and replayed a couple over and over. Eventually, they got destroyed but I was pretty far ahead at that point. The main win came about with Borborygmos and Gitrog Monster. There was one scenario where I had 1 land in hand, Realms Uncharted in hand, Borborygmos and Gitrog on the field, and Aminatou at 10 life. I cast Splendid reclamation to get 3 or 4 lands my from graveyard (I I really just wanted High Market). They went to counter it so I bolted them for 3 and drew a card off Gtrog, cast Realms Uncharted for 2 more lands, drew a card off Gitrog, Bolted them, drew a card, Bolted them, drew a card, and cracked a Blighted Woodland to draw 1 more card. In those 5 cards, none were lands so they survived at 1 life to let their counterspell resolve. I then attacked them and killed them, but it was disappointing that I could not get 1 more land in that sequence. This caused my to revert some changes and up the land count by 1 again for the next weeks changes.
After that, there was a play where Tuvasa could have attacked either me or Saheeli with a 17/17 double striker with trample. If they attack Saheeli, they survive at 2. If they attack me, I survive at 1. They went after Saheeli luckily. I was then able to just kill Saheeli at my whim with Borborygmos which I did 2 or 3 turns later. I ended up casting Gaze of Granite to kill Tuvasa's stuff and then just swung into them for lethal.
The main issue here is the lack of haste and the lack of noncombat methods of winning. I don't think I want to start including things like Elixir of Immortality (though Eldrazi would be good at some point potentially) to combat the fact that my graveyard is huge and my library is dwindling. With these games in mind, and the issues I had with the first game anyway, I have decided to give my deck a bit more reach in certain scenarios.
Based on the games last night, I have decided on the following changes for the next night:
The mains things for this round of changes are 1) Add another land 2) Replace a couple less desirable lands with basics since I am finding I often run out of basics to tutor 3) Add in a couple more removal spells and 4) add a Haste enabler with Anger to help work to play a creature and attack right away.
Regarding Haste, I may end up adding Urabrask at some point, but I think Anger works out better as it is harder to remove and works well with Windgrace.
Anger is indeed a great inclusion, Need for speed is also a card or Concordant Crossroads.. Only play the latter when going for lethal though.. Cause don't want to enable others with haste..
Urabrask is pretty good I would say, but a bit slow, considering it costs 5 mana to cast and has to stay in play to be relevant... ^^
Before I even bought the deck, I already had a list of about 40 cards I wanted to fit in. Urabrask was one of them. For a number of reasons, I just never got it added. As time has gone on, I don't feel that it is good enough on its own. Being a 5 drop is part of that but being a creature also makes it vulnerable. Anger on the other hand is harder to deal with so I have less chance of going for a win and then getting stopped unexpectedly.
What I like about Anger is, discard to Windgrace, draw a card and have haste... ^^
This is the other reason I like Anger over Urabrask. It is, at least, not card disadvantage since I still get use out of the discarded card and I draw a new one. It works very well with Windgrace.
I noticed you removed Avenger of Zendikar, why did you take it out? Was it not good enough for you? I still play it in my list.. It can wreck when you get it with haste and play a few lands.. swinging for 40+ damage out of nowhere... Also has synergy with Turntimber Sower, I know not many feel that Turntimber is good enough.. for me it has been a pretty good card though... Being able to return lands in response to someone blowing up the board can be a really great in my experience.. Especially if you run lands that return creatures... (makes it a cycle where you return lands with Turntimber, sac. the land to get a creature back, etc..)
My take on the Avenger/Sower synergy is that it is pretty good. There is a lot there that plays well together and it helps a late game Borborygmos as well since I can sac the Plants to get more lands to discard. I, at one point, was not sold on Turntimber, but I am letting it stick around for a while because of Borborygmos more than anything. If I wasn't running that, I wouldn't be running the Sower.
As for Avenger, I just hate the card. At this point it is likely an irrational hatred but it never feels good to cast it and then if I work to really beef up the Plants to then still wait a turn cycle and see them destroyed, it feels like a waste. Anger obviously "fixes" this latter problem since I can swing right away.
I will freely admit that, from a deckbuilding and maybe power level standpoint, that cutting Avenger is a mistake. I understand the synergies it has with parts of the deck (getting a bunch of plants for Phyrexian Plaguelord is good too) and I can see that this limits (if not eliminates) my opportunity for a true Alpha Strike to simply end the game out of nowhere. Even understanding all that, I still don't like the card. And, for me, I don't want to play with a card I dislike just because it is "right" to play with it. So, on the chopping block it goes
Finally got around to starting my commander ‘18 league this weekend with a pair of games.
- Game 1 I played entirely wrong. I was aggressively going after the problem artifacts and enchantments. At one point, I even cast Fury Scramble on a Decimate to try and clear things out. Unfortunately, the Esper player had a full Army of the Damned on the table, paired me up with someone else via Sower of Discord, and killed me. While I likely would have died regardless, I didn’t make any friends along the way and I ran out of removal way too fast.
- Game 2 was much better. I managed to find a well-timed Chain Reaction, then dropped the Lord and a Rampaging Baloths. The latter went the distance.
Going forward, I definitely want more removal. I had a ton of mana almost all the time, so getting as much bang for each card is ideal. A few more landfall guys wouldn’t hurt either. My opponents didn’t seem to have a ton of removal, so when I did make an army, it stuck around. More on this will follow...
Going forward, I definitely want more removal. I had a ton of mana almost all the time, so getting as much bang for each card is ideal. A few more landfall guys wouldn’t hurt either. My opponents didn’t seem to have a ton of removal, so when I did make an army, it stuck around. More on this will follow...
I think this part in particular is tough in my group. We play a lot of wraths and removal (I am part of this too) so building an army doesn't generally work out as it either gets blown away or just makes me a target. That is where I am hoping Angry Omnath will come in. He makes a big army (bigger than Baloths) and gives me a way to still make that army useful even if they die.
As to your opinion on running more removal, I would obviously agree. I have found to really like Chain Reaction which is a surprise. I also have Lavalanche, Blasphemous Act, Last One Standing, Gaze of Granite. and (soon hopefully) Toxic Deluge. Deluge will take the place of Lavalanche and the only reason it stuck around over Savage Twister for now is because it can hit walkers if needed. But, it really isn't very good. Good Ol' Damnation is a solid card too.
Going forward, I definitely want more removal. I had a ton of mana almost all the time, so getting as much bang for each card is ideal. A few more landfall guys wouldn’t hurt either. My opponents didn’t seem to have a ton of removal, so when I did make an army, it stuck around. More on this will follow...
I think this part in particular is tough in my group. We play a lot of wraths and removal (I am part of this too) so building an army doesn't generally work out as it either gets blown away or just makes me a target. That is where I am hoping Angry Omnath will come in. He makes a big army (bigger than Baloths) and gives me a way to still make that army useful even if they die.
As to your opinion on running more removal, I would obviously agree. I have found to really like Chain Reaction which is a surprise. I also have Lavalanche, Blasphemous Act, Last One Standing, Gaze of Granite. and (soon hopefully) Toxic Deluge. Deluge will take the place of Lavalanche and the only reason it stuck around over Savage Twister for now is because it can hit walkers if needed. But, it really isn't very good. Good Ol' Damnation is a solid card too.
Angry Omnath will definitely be high on the list of things to add. I spent most of the time in both games without any landfall triggers, and his floor is probably just a red Rampaging Baloths, which is still great.
EDIT: Another thing I noticed during the games was the relative lack of pressure that my planeswalker felt while he was on the table. Therefore, Nissa, Vital Force will also be high on the list of replacements. Her ultimate is extremely easy to achieve compared to most planeswalkers and it's very cohesive with what the deck wants to do. I would suggest more people put more planeswalkers in their deck to go along with their suite of board wipes and other removal.
But yeah, you should never play a card you don't like playing even if everyone else feels that it's the right card to play.. I don't run Craterhoof Behemoth and I wil probably get odd looks for not including that.
Craterhoof is another card that I generally don't play in anything. I have had it in a couple decks in the past, but it is in none of my current ones. Even when I think of adding it, I just decide not to. So, I can certainly see your side of it there too.
Regarding MLD: I don't do anything with MLD but if you play it and get complaints from someone that also plays a similar strategy, I feel that is on them rather than you. So, if I was in the situation you are where playing it gets me grief from others when they do the same thing, I would probably just double down on it In any case, I think with Splendid Reclamation and World Shaper (and even Heroic Intervention), playing MLD in this deck is a viable method of really pulling ahead and closing out the game.
Wanted to say a possible nice inclusion that can deal a ton of damage and gets big is Ob Nixilis, the Fallen, have had a few games where this outright killed a player or 2.. Dropping like 8 to 10 lands..
This has been on my radar as well and I haven't pulled the trigger yet as I had a bad experience with it when I had my Gitrog Monster deck built. The deck turned into just "sac all my lands, get them all back with Splendid Reclamation, get 30 triggers for Ob Nixilis". This deck is not even close to being able to set up for that since I have no way to sac lands but I didn't like that my Gitrog Monster deck just evolved to be all about that interaction so I have left this one out for now. I may be overly cautious regarding this so I might end up adding it back in.
For removal World Breaker is also great, not sure if it was already mentioned.. It can even sac. a land to get back to your hand.. ^^
This is in my list of cards to add as well because of the usefulness of it and because sacrificing a land can be beneficial in this deck (or, at least, not detrimental). I haven't added it yet since it is 7 mana and I am not sure what to cut for it. Due to playing against an artifact deck, I like Into the Core since it gets rid of 2 artifacts and is an Instant. I may need to swap these two eventually; I am not sure.
Perilous Vault might also be a good inclusion, it Exiles instead of destroys, in our Meta people tend to run a lot of indestructible stuff.. I have switched this in and out quite often... In some games this was great, others I need Oblivion Stone on that spot...
Just some suggestions for options, hope they help..
I don't generally like mass exile effects. I remember when Perilous Vault was printed and I looked at it as a "better" Oblivion Stone. But then my stuff is exiled too and I can often get things back if they are destroyed but being exiled is tougher to recover from.
Pernicious Deed on the other hand is something I have in my list to add. I got close to adding it but then I realized Gaze of Granite hit Planeswalkers while Deed does not. This was the biggest reason I kept it out, though telegraphing my play with Deed is also a bit of a detriment. On the other hand, the interaction with Teeg (no one plays him yet, but I can see him making an appearance eventually) is interesting and I can activate it at instant timing. So, even if people play around it, I can blow the board on my opponent's turn and be the first to rebuild. I might just decide to cut one of the damage based wraths for this (probably Chain Reaction).
Thanks for the suggestions and the thought out rationale for them. I will have to give some of these some more thought.
I will have another post below to provide my game summaries from last night as well as my current thoughts of the deck. I decided to break it out because it got really long.
We played 2 more games last night and I won 1 and Aminatou won the other. The first game started off kind of slow for me where I essentially just had a bunch of wraths and removal. This created a scenario where I was wrathing the board somewhat often but I was never actually getting to the point of building up a board state. Eventually, this meant that I was taken out by the Saheeli player without ever having actually done much in the game. Aminatou won shortly thereafter.
The second game went a bit better. I had Farhaven Elf, Yavimaya Dryad, and Temur Sabertooth in hand. I was able to ramp pretty heavily to the point where I eventually was able to get all my basics out of my deck. One play I enjoyed was that on Turn 5 I cast Lord Windgrace and then Turn 6 I cast Realms Uncharted. The player put the 2 lands I expected in the graveyard and I just got them back with Lord Windgrace.
The odd thing about this game is that I didn't really get any heavy hitters. I still drew a lot of "answer" cards. I did draw a Borborygmos but I had searched out so many lands, that I didn't do much with it. Mina and Denn is great for this as I did get them a little later (Borborygmos ended up being put on the bottom of my library before Mina and Denn hit) so I have ways to get lands back to my hand, but it just didn't happen when I needed it to. My Omnath, Borborygmos, and Multani just languished in my deck for quite a long time so it became difficult to win through damage. I ended up winning off of Lavalanche to kill Saheeli and then Eternal Witness to get it back to kill of Aminatou. I still don't like Lavalanche as a wrath, but maybe I need to treat it as something of a Win Condition. However, if I do that, Comet Storm is way better. I might just have to find a way to get Comet Storm in the deck.
A couple of things to note in the last game:
Aminatou almost won off of Exsanguinate and Debt to the Deathless. The life loss they pose is hard to come back from but the immense life gain they give the caster is even harder to handle. I am not sure what I want to do about this. Erebos is a good option to stop the life gain, but Aminatou has shown they are going to just tutor up Debt to the Deathless (the one I am more concerned about) to just end the game there with the life loss so preventing life gain isn't as relevant. I have given thought to something like Sadistic Sacrament as a way to stop a few different things from each player. Depending on how often Debt to the Deathless is winning the game for Aminatou (or any other specific card is winning the game for anyone else) Sacrament seems like a pretty good card to include.
Beyond that, I am finding that though I have attempted to make swaps on a 1-to-1 basis for win cons (cut Avenger, get Omnath for example). I know with all the changes, I may have gone down on my threat a little too much as I don't think I added a true replacement for Baloths for example. Titania was supposed to be the replacement, but she is expensive, so the budget hasn't allowed it yet. Also, I don't think she is good enough anyway since I don't have a lot of ways to get lands into the graveyard from the battlefield. I still don't like Baloths because the amount of wraths in the meta is too high to make this a consistent win con. Ob Nixilis, as suggested, is probably the right call for this instead of Titania.
After playing a few games as the list is now, I am also finding that I think I have too much ramp and too many "answers" (mostly wraths). This means the wraths get stuck in my hand due to now having anything to destroy and the ramp becomes much less impactful as the game moves on and ramping everything out does hurt Borborygmos and Lord Windgrace as it gives me fewer lands in hand to discard.
With all of these things in mind, I think I may need to cut down on wraths and answers, cut down on ramp, and increase threats beyond what I have. I wouldn't mind more utility cards too, like Sacrament. As of now, my thoughts for additions are:
The main thing with Deed is I want to cut down on wraths in general but at least one is a swap with Deed for the reasons mentioned above. Toxic Deluge is most likely going to make it in instead of one of the other current wraths. Brontodon is one I didn't go into detail on above but it is mostly to deal with Torpor Orb. World Breaker does it too, so either one of those is fine. The cards I am thinking of cutting are:
Acidic Slime - This would be a tough call, but World Breaker is 2 mana more, exiles, and is (more or less) repeatable. I found last night that I ended up with an Acidic Slime in hand I didn't want to cast since nothing was on the board. With World Breaker, I could cast it to exile a land and then just sac it to get it back and do something later. At least it then isn't stuck in my hand.
Blasphemous Act, Chain Reaction, Lavalanche - This is the desire to cut down on wraths. As you can see, I have 3 to cut and 2 to add so if I went with these changes, I go down by 1. That might be the "safe" play for now.
Burnished Hart, Skyshroud Claim - This is a desire to cut down on the ramp and these are the worst 2 in my opinion. Hart is not an ETB so I can't bounce it with Sabertooth to use it again and it is mana intensive. Skyshroud Claim is 4 mana (net 2 since the lands enter untapped) but at that time I want to do something different). I am keeping Cultivate for now since it puts a land in hand which works well for a lot of things. I still want it to put a land on the field so I can ramp too (so no Seek the Horizon in this spot).
Reclamation Sage, Into the Core - If I move into World Breaker and/or Brontodon, I think I would prefer to not overload myself on this type of answer so I would probably cut the Sage. Into the Core is questionable. I like the Instant timing but it is a one shot effect. World Breaker is a bit slower but more powerful over the course of the game.
Rubblehulk - When the deck was getting going, Rubblehulk was a great card since it was a big creature and I could make something bigger as it was attacking as a surprise. As time has gone on though, I have found it is not really pulling its weight.
Terminate - Just working to cut down on spot removal. Not sure if this is the right call, but of the timing ones I have, this is the one I would cut.
Turntimber Sower - This card has been performing worse and worse as the deck evolves. It has a cool synergy with Boborygmos, but that is about it. I don't care anough about the plants (I have only gotten 4 at most from it) and when I do get them, they get me 1 land card back. Life from the Loam will be going in at some point. I didn't add it to the list up top as I am not sure when the budget allows for it with all the other changes I am thinking of. It could be as soon as this week if I find I can fit it in.
I am not sure how many of these cuts are right or how many will actually change, but I do think there is a high likelihood that they get taken out as I try to find the right balance for all my ramp, answers, threats, and utility. I am also still not sure 41 lands is the right number and I may cut it down again to 40 but so far 41 is working out well and cutting ramp may mean I am better off for now to keep the land count that high.
Just wanted to share a couple results of a random Gatherer search I did today. Disclaimer: these assume a limited budget and the opponents are other commander '18 decks:
- Akoum Hellkite: kills Thopters and Servos, keeps planeswalkers from going ultimate.
- Invader Parasite: all three common opponents play a bunch of basic Islands, and two of them play a bunch of basic Plains, so this could do a nice chunk of damage.
- Retreat to Kazandu: another way to get more mileage out of your landfall triggers.
Also, has anyone tried to implement a Desert package with Ramunap Ruins and some more cycling lands, or are they just not strong enough?
We each picked our preferred deck and luckily none of our preferred decks overlapped. I really wanted the Lord Windgrace deck so I am happy I got to play it.
I decided to open up this thread to keep track of my changes as well as maybe summarize some games we play just to give an idea of the way some of the decks play together, even after changes have been made.
Here is the current list. I will keep updating the list as I make changes:
1 Lord Windgrace
Lands
1 Badlands
1 Barren Moor
1 Bayou
1 Bazaar of Baghdad
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Canyon Slough
1 Cinder Glade
1 Command Tower
1 Diamond Valley
7 Forest
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Glacial Chasm
1 High Market
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
3 Mountain
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Sheltered Thicket
1 Smoldering Marsh
1 Stomping Ground
1 Strip Mine
4 Swamp
1 Taiga
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Wasteland
1 Winding Canyons
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Acidic Slime
1 Bane of Progress
1 Borborygmos Enraged
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Eternal Witness
1 Evolution Sage
1 Farhaven Elf
1 Fertilid
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Lifeblood Hydra
1 Mina and Denn, Wildborn
1 Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
1 Noxious Gearhulk
1 Phyrexian Delver
1 Protean Hulk
1 Ramunap Excavator
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
1 Realm Seekers
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Soul of New Phyrexia
1 Spike Weaver
1 The Gitrog Monster
1 Thrashing Brontodon
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Ulvenwald Hydra
1 Wood Elves
1 World Breaker
1 World Shaper
1 Yavimaya Dryad
1 Yavimaya Elder
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
Artifacts
1 Crucible of Worlds
Instants
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Bedevil
1 Constant Mists
1 Crop Rotation
1 Entomb
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Heroic Intervention
1 Momentous Fall
1 Putrefy
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Realms Uncharted
1 Windgrace's Judgment
Sorceries
1 Cultivate
1 Damnation
1 Last One Standing
1 Life from the Loam
1 Splendid Reclamation
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Wave of Vitriol
Planeswalkers
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Wrenn and Six
1 Akoum Refuge
1 Jungle Hollow
1 Kazandu Refuge
1 Warped Landscape
1 Emissary of Grudges
1 Soul of Innistrad
1 Budoka Gardener
1 Scute Mob
1 Loyal Subordinate
1 Loyal Apprentice
1 Baloth Woodcrasher
1 Borderland Explorer
1 Zendikar Incarnate
1 Retreat to Hagra
1 Deathreap Ritual
1 High Market
1 Miren the Moaning Well
1 Cinder Glade
1 Burnished Hart
1 Fertilid
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Temur Sabertooth
1 Yavimaya Dryad
1 Wood Elves
1 Crop Rotation
1 Last One Standing
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Agent of Erebos
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Explore
1 Explosive Vegetation
1 Forge of Heroes
1 Fury Storm
1 Hunting Wilds
1 Jund Panorama
1 Khalni Garden
1 Khalni Heart Expedition
1 Loyal Guardian
1 Moldgraf Monstrosity
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Reality Scramble
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Bane of Progress
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Borborygmos Enraged
1 Jund Charm
1 Mina and Denn Wildborn
1 Momentous Fall
1 Phyrexian Reclamation
1 The Gitrog Monster
1 Centaur Vincrasher
1 Charnelhoard Wurm
1 Crash of Rhinos
1 Decimate
1 Grisly Salvage
1 Gruul Turf
1 Moonlight Bargain
1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Seer's Sundial
1 Worm Harvest
1 Multani Yavimaya's Avatar
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Phyrexian Plaguelord
1 Protean Hulk
1 Seedguide Ash
1 Skullwinder
1 Smoldering Marsh
1 Splendid Reclamation
1 Terminate
1 World Shaper
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Savage Lands
1 Haunted Fengraf
1 Ruinous Path
1 Sol Ring
1 Far Wanderings
1 Canyon Slough
1 Constant Mists
1 Into the Core
1 Phyrexian Delver
1 Realms Uncharted
1 Sheltered Thicket
1 Wildest Dreams
1 Bloodtracker
1 Harrow
1 Whiptongue Hydra
1 Avenger of Zendikar
1 Blighted Woodland
1 Flameblast Dragon
1 Golgari Rot Farm
1 Gyrus, Walker of Corpses
1 Rampaging Baloths
1 Savage Twister
1 Temple of the False God
1 Greater Good
1 Heroic Intervention
1 Omnath Locus of Rage
1 Anger
1 Eternal Witness
1 Forest
1 Forest
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Mountain
1 Noxious Gearhulk
1 Swamp
1 Acidic Slime
1 Agent of Erebos
1 Burnished Hart
1 Chain Reaction
1 Lavalanche
1 Greater Good
1 Rubblehulk
1 Seedguide Ash
1 Skyshroud Claim
1 Turntimber Sower
1 Comet Storm
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Lifeblood Hydra
1 Mogis, God of Slaughter
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1 Sadistic Sacrament
1 The Scorpion God
1 Thrashing Brontodon
1 World Breaker
2 Mountain
1 Nesting Dragon
1 Temur Sabertooth
1 Thantis, the Warweaver
1 Chainer, Dementia Master
1 Realm Seekers
1 Spike Weaver
1 Ulvenwald Hydra
1 Winding Canyons
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Consign to Dust
1 Grapple With the Past
1 Into the Core
1 Jund Charm
1 Phyrexian Plaguelord
1 Ruric Thar the Unbowed
1 Sadistic Sacrament
1 Stitch Together
1 The Scorpion God
1 Wildest Dreams
1 Boil
1 Decree of Annihilation
1 Forest
1 Hellkite Tyrant
1 Jokulhaups
1 Mountain
1 Obliterate
1 Soul of New Phyrexia
1 Swamp
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Wave of Vitriol
1 Borborygmos Enraged
1 Rocky Tar Pit
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Noxious Gearhulk
1 Mountain Valley
1 Strip Mine
1 Boil
1 Decree of Annihilation
1 Hellkite Tyrant
1 Jokulhaups
1 Obliterate
1 Omnath, Locus of Rage
1 Terminate
1 Wave of Vitriol
4 Forest
3 Mountain
4 Swamp
1 Assassin's Trophy
1 Badlands
1 Bayou
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Damnation
1 Diamond Valley
1 Entomb
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Life from the Loam
1 Noxious Gearhulk
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Stomping Ground
1 Taiga
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Comet Storm
1 Diabolic Intent
1 Gaze of Granite
1 Mogis, God of Slaughter
1 Skullwinder
1 Xantcha, Sleeper Agent
1 Anger
1 Chainer, Dementia Master
1 Wrenn and Six
1 Bedevil
1 Borborygmos Enraged
1 Wave of Vitriol
1 Nissa, Vital Force
1 Evolution Sage
1 Wasteland
1 Tectonic Edge
Eventually, I drew into a Chain Reaction which dealt with everything but a Bruna controlled by the Estrid player as it had Totem Armor. I was able to deal with that a little later and ended up closing out the game with ramp and Retreat to Hagra and a few other things. The rest of the game went pretty well and I ended up winning. No other games were really a "big play" we had to deal with like the Army of the Damned.
The next game we all basically got stomped by the Estrid player. They had a bunch of draw and were able to keep a full board state. The rest of us were horribly mana screwed and we were all at about 5 lands max while Estrid player was at a lot more. This one was not much of a game for the rest of us, but it was still a fair game and we all saw the power of the Estrid deck when it got to go off.
The third game was another that I won and it was mostly off the back of Avenger of Zendikar. I was able to ramp and keep ramping and ended up with 14 6/7 plant tokens. Aminatou was killed fairly early (I don't remember if I or someone else killed them) and the tokens cleaned up the other two.
I don't think either the Aminatou deck or the Saheeli deck really got to do its thing, but Aminatou was doing much better overall. I think the Saheeli player was just very unlucky and never did anything towards its theme. I am hoping to see the updates that player makes and I am hoping it plays a bit better this coming week.
As an aside, I was pretty disappointed in that the Lord Windgrace deck did not have more new cards that were "lands matter". There are a few reprints that are good, but I would have liked to see new ones. The deck should have had Crop Rotation so, as seen below, this is one of the first inclusions in this round of changes.
Also, Nesting Dragon is a beast and I am going to pick up at least one more. Overall, I really like the deck (even after some disappointment) and I am excited to continue tweaking it as time goes on. I have never gotten a good Jund deck built even with a few different attempts. At least, not one that I really wanted to keep built and I am hoping I can buck that trend with this deck.
Here are the changes for this round. Since we have a budget each week, I am also going to include the card prices of each. Since I only buy foils, my group has agreed to let me use the TCGPlayer price listed on Scryfall for my cards even though the actual card I get is worth much more. I use Scryfall since they have a fantastic API to make it easier to get prices for cards for something like this. I wrote a program that takes a list of cards and gets the lowest price across all versions. They do tend to be a couple cents above TCGPlayer so I don't think I am getting an advantage by using their prices.
CUTS
Akoum Refuge
Jungle Hollow
Kazandu Refuge
Warped Landscape
Emissary of Grudges
Soul of Innistrad
Budoka Gardener
Scute Mob
Loyal Subordinate
Loyal Apprentice
Baloth Woodcrasher
Borderland Explorer
Zendikar Incarnate
Retreat to Hagra
Deathreap Ritual
ADDS
High Market 1.46
Miren the Moaning Well 9.49
Cinder Glade 2.86
Burnished Hart 0.99
Fertilid 0.05
Ravenous Chupacabra 0.59
Reclamation Sage 0.11
Temur Sabertooth 0.24
Yavimaya Dryad 0.16
Wood Elves 0.2
Crop Rotation 2.29
Last One Standing 0.55
Rakdos Charm 0.23
Agent of Erebos 0.22
Skyshroud Claim 0.39
Glad to see that Nesting Dragon was as good as advertised. Red has really gotten some much-needed studs in the last few sets.
From my initial research, there are three all-star sub-commanders that absolutely need to go into the deck: Omnath, Gitrog, and Titania. Tireless Tracker and Eternal Witness are two of the pricier staples that will probably end up justifying their price tag. Unfortunately, Life from the Loam and Crucible of Worlds probably won't justify their cost, but at least Ramunap Excavator is cheap enough to get in.
I'll be keeping a close eye on this thread to see how it works for you. Hopefully there's something I can learn for my own league.
My next round of additions for next week already have Gitrog and Eternal Witness slotted in. That will take up most of my budget. I wanted Constant Mists but that spiked in the last 2 weeks so I will probably put that off until the week after. I am trying to do 1 card around $10 (or maybe 2 around $13 or $14) and then the rest being smaller amounts so I can still change the deck up a bit each week and get rid of less optimal cards. I can already see I have way too much ramp in the deck and I don't like that the deck starts at 43 lands. I will end up cutting some cards in both categories next time. I know I added ramp but I prefer creature based ramp over spell based, and it will make even more sense when Phyrexian Reclamation makes it into the mix.
Hopefully your playgroup has fun with the idea. I am hoping ours does as well once we get more into the swing of things.
I also briefly toyed with the idea of using Gyrus as the commander and turning it into a simple value-based Jund list with all the low-cost ETB creatures out there, but that seems so boring compared to lands.
Are you going to try and expand the actual lands package beyond just fixing and fetching? I've looked into a bunch of those options, but it seems that Modern has driven them way beyond league budgets.
Does your group limit the number of individual cards you can change each round/week? We limited ourselves to 10 cards at first, decreasing by 1 each subsequent round, and ending at 2.
I was able to keep things in check most of game 1 and ended up killing the Aminatou player (who was running Yennet as the general) with a Lavalanche and a big Spider beefed up with Bloodrush from Rubblehulk. I did this because they had me at 12 commander damage with a 6 power flyer and one of the enchantments was from the Tuvasa player. I was afraid that they could beef it up enough to just kill me outright. I could have also gone for Tuvasa as they had tapped out to play their general (for the 7th time I believe) and I didn't think they were as big a threat. I was dead wrong. They untappped, loaded up their general with Auras and swung out at me. I barely stayed alive, but I couldn't deal with it. I should have just taken that player out and tried to deal with Yennet later.
The second game, the Saheeli player got Saheeli's ultimate off fairly early with a Myr Battlesphere and Sharding Sphinx on the field. I was able to deal with the Sphinx luckily, but could not deal with the rest. That Ult ended up winning them the game later in the round (along with a lot of other well timed spells) due to the number of tokens from the Battlesphere as well as the support cards they had.
The Yennet player kind of got screwed over since I had to cast Decimate and Windgrace's Judgment early on and took out their general both times. They really couldn't get a foothold to keep in the game.
I know what cards I want next, but I get the prices on the weekend so I will update this post at that time in case the prices drastically change by then.
I know how you feel. Constant Mists went from $3 to $7 so that takes a chunk of my budget. It will be a week or two before I get that card added.
I have thought of changing the general, but the other 2 do seem boring as you suggested. Windgrace is awesome so I have no real desire to change him any time soon.
I will update it a little here and there but I don't plan on making sweeping changes beyond fixing. Miren and High Market are added and those are the big two for me. Phyrexian Tower may come later and Diamond Valley is too far out of budget for this deck. Once our league is done (probably when next year's decks release) I will fully update it with other lands since I actually like this deck enough that I am guessing I might have finally found a Jund deck to keep around. I might also decide to put the Stage-Depths combo in at some point.
No. We limited it to just the dollar amount. We felt that would keep the changes slow enough eventually and I think it will. Our rules are:
1) $20 a week
2) Any portion of the budget not used, carries over to the next week
3) Any time a card is added and then removed, it can be added again later at no cost to the weekly budget
4) We did this to allow for cards to be swapped without being too detrimental to the goal. That is, we don't want to lock people into cards or punish
them for trying to add or remove the same card as they figure out the deck.
CUTS
Explore
Explosive Vegetation
Forge of Heroes
Fury Storm
Hunting Wilds
Jund Panorama
Khalni Garden
Khalni Heart Expedition
Loyal Guardian
Moldgraf Monstrosity
Myriad Landscape
Reality Scramble
ADDS
1 Mountain 0.04
1 Swamp 0.04
2 Forest 0.08
Bane of Progress 2.99
Blasphemous Act 1.39
Borborygmos Enraged 0.83
Jund Charm 0.2
Mina and Denn Wildborn 0.95
Momentous Fall 1.99
Phyrexian Reclamation 2.96
The Gitrog Monster 8.14
This week was mostly about getting rid of a bunch of superfluous ramp cards (mostly the worst ones) and focus a bit more on having some power in the deck. Bane of Progress is here because it is a great card normally and it shuts down the Enchantress and Artifact decks pretty hard. B. Act is another wrath which Jund Charm can be as well. The Charm also acts as grave hate when needed. I don't think I will use the counter mode all that often.
Borborygmos and the Gitrog Monster are beaters with additional effects. Mina and Denn helps with ramp and gives my dudes trample to help push though some damage. Reclamation gets my creatures back and Momentous Fall is card draw and life gain when I need it while also preventing something from getting exiled.
I also cut a number of colorless producing lands for Basics. I didn't want to go too overboard, but some of the ones enter tapped and slow me down and then don't do enough to warrant their inclusion. Basics, especially with the ramp I have, are generally better in those slots.
Last night I won the first game mostly off the back of Avenger of Zendikar. I ended up with 55 power on the board (or somewhere around there) and took out the Saheeli player one turn and then the other two the next turn. The major issue I had at this time was that the Tuvasa player had a creature enchanted with Indestructibility and Pariah which meant we had been unable to attack into them for a long time. On the turn I won, I top decked Consign to Dust and was able to destroy the Pariah and a Lightmine Field they had which allowed me to deal enough damage to both players.
The next game, the Tuvasa player won. They had a lot of things going on and they have made a lot of good progress with their deck as one would expect with Enchantments. Saheeli is also sitting in a good spot with their deck though they haven't won often. I think they have the power in their deck; its just that they have been somewhat unlucky so far because the deck wants to be aggressive so if they over-extend and the board gets wiped, it is difficult to rebuild.
Unfortunately, the Aminatou/Yennet player is having a tough time of it. I am not sure if the deck is just difficult to modify to a working version or if the generals are "traps" in the sense of trying to build around them too much doesn't work because they don't work well for that or what the issue is. I am convinced they *can* work, but it may take a bit more thought than the other 3. I believe that player is working to tweak their deck further so hopefully the next few weeks are a bit more successful for them.
I have gotten my newest updates made to the deck, but I will again wait to post them until Friday as that is when I want to get the updated prices on the cards.
I understand that this anecdote doesn't really speak to the power level of the card; it speaks more to the mistake of the Lord Windgrace player in playing it. However, it is not a strategy I enjoy playing against and it is definitely not one I am going to use.
I thought about Wayward Swordtooth though Oracle of Mul Daya is much better. I have decided against both for now. I have The Gitrog Monster and Mina and Denn to help in this department and Mina and Denn give me lands in my hand as needed to discard to Windgrace or Borborygmos. I did add Splendid Reclamation in my last round of changes which I will be posting sometime tomorrow probably.
I own these as well, but I have no intention of adding Omnath. I might add Titania later so that is definitely a good suggestion. Gitrog was added in my second round of changes as the synergy with Lord Windgrace and Borborygmos (and Turntimber Sower for that matter) is pretty good.
I don't like Scapeshift for a number of reasons. It really only helps with Landfall (Nesting Dragon, Baloths, and Avenger are the only three) and I don't think it is worth the slot since the lands I am getting right now are mostly just mana producing lands. I do like the suggestion of Realms Uncharted though and I will have to see how I want to proceed with that. Once we get further into the League, I may add that with Crucible and Ramunap Excavator. Even without those, World Shaper and Splendid Reclamation can get me all 4 lands anyway and no matter what lands I get I can use them for Windgrace or Borborygmos. As I am typing this out, I am starting to become more convinced that Realms Uncharted should be in the deck.
EDIT: @Realms Uncharted: it's value seems dependent on the number of utility lands that you can run. If you load up right away with Dark Depths, Valakut, etc, then it's going to be excellent. However, if your best lands are a couple fetches and some bad duals, it's probably not worth the spot.
1) Triggering Gitrog to get a "free" card draw (it triggers Turntimber Sower too if that ever matters)
2) It gives me 2 lands to discard to Borborygmos and in that case, I don't care what the lands are
3) It gives me Miren which I should be able to get from my graveyard with Windgrace since it is basically guaranteed to be put into the graveyard
Alone, each of those things are pretty weak, but giving a number of options for different scenarios isn't the worst thing in the world. Maybe I am looking forward to the future too much as my current landbase isn't too exciting, but I do like the card.
I can see the benefit with Titania definitely, but it only gets you one card with Gitrog so the synergy there is pretty weak. However, the Titania interaction is pretty solid. I have decided to pick one up now since the foils are cheap(-ish) and I don't want to get caught when they go back up. That way, if I ever do get to putting Titania in I can see if I want Scapeshift too. I do like the Synergy there.
ADDS
Multani Yavimaya's Avatar 1.71
Overgrown Tomb 8.72
Phyrexian Plaguelord 0.16
Protean Hulk 3.37
Seedguide Ash 0.49
Skullwinder 1.29
Smoldering Marsh 1.49
Splendid Reclamation 1.49
Terminate 0.89
World Shaper 0.65
CUTS
Centaur Vincrasher
Charnelhoard Wurm
Crash of Rhinos
Decimate
Grisly Salvage
Gruul Turf
Moonlight Bargain
Rakdos Carnarium
Seer's Sundial
Worm Harvest
I decided to get rid of the bouncelands (Rot Farm comes out next week) and put in better lands to fetch off my various ramp cards. I also cut some of the worse creatures and other spells that I did not enjoy playing with or felt were underperforming.
In the adds, I added better creatures, a couple ways to deal with mass LD if needed, better lands, and some better removal. I have other removal coming in later, but Terminate is the one I could add now.
I played a game tonight and ended up losing (again) to Tuvasa. I had a chance to kill their only creature and did not take it and they went off by loading it up with 7 auras, 2 of which were Pariah and Indestructibility. I felt I would be fine since I have 2 wraths in hand, but I couldn't get past those 2 cards. This is the second time this has happened so I know in the future to work to keep them off a creature as much as possible.
I'm very confused as to Protean Hulk - A. how is it this cheap? B. what does it do for your deck? C. how is it better and more consistent than Worm Harvest? Centaur Vinecrasher?
A) It is cheap because it was reprinted.
B) I use it for an answer. Just the other day, I used it to get my Bane of Progress to blow up the opponents' Artifacts and Enchantments. I also used it to get a couple utility creatures at Instant timing when I need them (Agent of Erebos is a good one). I will use it to get Phyrexian Delver if I need to reanimate something at Instant timing. The creature is there for not losing more so than winning.
C) If the comparison is the benefit of one over the other as a Win Condition, Worm Harvest and Centaur Vinecrasher have the Hulk beat. But, as I explained above, the Hulk is not a win-con and I don't compare it as such. Of my win-cons, these 2 seemed the weakest. Importantly, in the case of Worm Harvest (and Avenger of Zendikar for that matter), I am not a huge fan of swarming with small tokens. I like Baloths. I am thinking about Omnath. But smaller tokens are not interesting to me. Avenger is actually on the chopping block for Omnath for this reason.
CUTS
Terramorphic Expanse
Evolving Wilds
Savage Lands
Haunted Fengraf
Ruinous Path
Sol Ring
Far Wanderings
ADDS
Canyon Slough 3.77
Constant Mists 7.99
Into the Core 0.08
Phyrexian Delver 0.21
Realms Uncharted 4.49
Sheltered Thicket 1.96
Wildest Dreams 0.13
I cut the deck down to 40 lands. This may be too few for this type of deck but I don't like having 42 lands in a deck. I may have to revisit this and go back up to 41 depending on how this plays. For now though, I think this is the right number. The lands I did get rid of work well with Gitrog but so do the ones I added. I just don't like having that many that enter tapped and I didn't care enough about Fengraf getting me back a creature. Producing only colorless was a downside too.
I added in Delver to reanimate, Realms Uncharted to get me lands when needed (see previous posts for other reasons for it), Wildest Dreams since it looks like it can do well to get me a bunch of stuff back (mostly lands for Borborygmos is my thought), Constant Mists to give me a way to survive an alpha strike from the Artifact and Enchantment players, and finally Into the Core because I needed a way to exile Darksteel Forge and this and World Breaker were the best options. This one is cheaper (mana cost-wise) and it is an Instant so I am going to give it a try.
We played one game with this week's lists last night and sadly I have very little to report on them. Even with still being at 40 lands, I got mana screwed pretty bad. It took forever to get to my red mana and I missed a bunch of land drops. By the time I even started to do something, I was too far in the hole to survive. I honestly don't even remember a lot about how the game ended since I was watching but not really invested in paying attention.
I don't think a single data point is enough to say I went too low on mana with cutting 2 lands and Sol Ring, but I want to record it as it is possible it is a mistake and I will have to revert it in the future. I don't think we will play next week so I will update my list next Friday, but a new game summary won't come along until the week after.
Now that we are in the second month, I expect Saheeli and Aminatou to make more of a showing in terms of wins and head shots. Aminatou, in fact, won one of our games last night (though I contend that they kind of stole it on luck which I will describe below). In any case, the decks are evolving and people are doing well with them though the Saheeli player is still having a bit of a hard time as their strategy is unfortunately easy to hate out. And, they seem to get mana screwed fairly often so hopefully they are able to get over the current slump they are in.
Here are the changes I had slotted for last night:
CUTS
Bloodtracker
Harrow
Whiptongue Hydra
ADDS
Greater Good 2.81
Heroic Intervention 5.49
Omnath Locus of Rage 7.57
A quick note on these changes: we decided somewhat late to allow changes for last night as it was a different night than normal and we weren't sure if we wanted last night to be the start of a new "season" or month. As such, I ended up not actually having time to get these changes made so the games I played were played without these changes in place
We played 2 games last night. The first game took forever to play as there were a lot of board wipes in the game and me and Saheeli didn't often have a strong board state. Saheeli had a lot of small creatures and I had 1 or 2 big creatures. I eventually got Borborygmos and Multani and Borborygmos was answered pretty quickly and exiled from my graveyard. Multani is the reason I almost won the game though. The game went on and on and I eventually became the Monarch by stealing it from the Tuvasa player. I then tried to get my Multani down only to have it destroyed a bunch of times. I think I cast him about 8-10 times that game. And, I was doing so towards the end so I would cast him and not be able to attack and he would die before my next turn. Eventually, because of the Monarch, I ended up just drawing out of my deck and losing when it was just me and Aminatou left. I killed Tuvasa and Aminatou killed Saheeli.
The second game went much better. I started off with a ton of ramp. I had 3 ramp creatures and Temur Sabertooth so I just bounced and replayed a couple over and over. Eventually, they got destroyed but I was pretty far ahead at that point. The main win came about with Borborygmos and Gitrog Monster. There was one scenario where I had 1 land in hand, Realms Uncharted in hand, Borborygmos and Gitrog on the field, and Aminatou at 10 life. I cast Splendid reclamation to get 3 or 4 lands my from graveyard (I I really just wanted High Market). They went to counter it so I bolted them for 3 and drew a card off Gtrog, cast Realms Uncharted for 2 more lands, drew a card off Gitrog, Bolted them, drew a card, Bolted them, drew a card, and cracked a Blighted Woodland to draw 1 more card. In those 5 cards, none were lands so they survived at 1 life to let their counterspell resolve. I then attacked them and killed them, but it was disappointing that I could not get 1 more land in that sequence. This caused my to revert some changes and up the land count by 1 again for the next weeks changes.
After that, there was a play where Tuvasa could have attacked either me or Saheeli with a 17/17 double striker with trample. If they attack Saheeli, they survive at 2. If they attack me, I survive at 1. They went after Saheeli luckily. I was then able to just kill Saheeli at my whim with Borborygmos which I did 2 or 3 turns later. I ended up casting Gaze of Granite to kill Tuvasa's stuff and then just swung into them for lethal.
The main issue here is the lack of haste and the lack of noncombat methods of winning. I don't think I want to start including things like Elixir of Immortality (though Eldrazi would be good at some point potentially) to combat the fact that my graveyard is huge and my library is dwindling. With these games in mind, and the issues I had with the first game anyway, I have decided to give my deck a bit more reach in certain scenarios.
Based on the games last night, I have decided on the following changes for the next night:
CUTS
Avenger of Zendikar
Blighted Woodland
Flameblast Dragon
Golgari Rot Farm
Gyrus, Walker of Corpses
Rampaging Baloths
Savage Twister
Temple of the False God
ADDS
Anger 2.99
Eternal Witness 6.42
Forest 0.04
Forest 0.04
Hero's Downfall 2.64
Mountain 0.04
Noxious Gearhulk 2.69
Swamp 0.04
The mains things for this round of changes are 1) Add another land 2) Replace a couple less desirable lands with basics since I am finding I often run out of basics to tutor 3) Add in a couple more removal spells and 4) add a Haste enabler with Anger to help work to play a creature and attack right away.
Regarding Haste, I may end up adding Urabrask at some point, but I think Anger works out better as it is harder to remove and works well with Windgrace.
This is the other reason I like Anger over Urabrask. It is, at least, not card disadvantage since I still get use out of the discarded card and I draw a new one. It works very well with Windgrace.
My take on the Avenger/Sower synergy is that it is pretty good. There is a lot there that plays well together and it helps a late game Borborygmos as well since I can sac the Plants to get more lands to discard. I, at one point, was not sold on Turntimber, but I am letting it stick around for a while because of Borborygmos more than anything. If I wasn't running that, I wouldn't be running the Sower.
As for Avenger, I just hate the card. At this point it is likely an irrational hatred but it never feels good to cast it and then if I work to really beef up the Plants to then still wait a turn cycle and see them destroyed, it feels like a waste. Anger obviously "fixes" this latter problem since I can swing right away.
I will freely admit that, from a deckbuilding and maybe power level standpoint, that cutting Avenger is a mistake. I understand the synergies it has with parts of the deck (getting a bunch of plants for Phyrexian Plaguelord is good too) and I can see that this limits (if not eliminates) my opportunity for a true Alpha Strike to simply end the game out of nowhere. Even understanding all that, I still don't like the card. And, for me, I don't want to play with a card I dislike just because it is "right" to play with it. So, on the chopping block it goes
- Game 1 I played entirely wrong. I was aggressively going after the problem artifacts and enchantments. At one point, I even cast Fury Scramble on a Decimate to try and clear things out. Unfortunately, the Esper player had a full Army of the Damned on the table, paired me up with someone else via Sower of Discord, and killed me. While I likely would have died regardless, I didn’t make any friends along the way and I ran out of removal way too fast.
- Game 2 was much better. I managed to find a well-timed Chain Reaction, then dropped the Lord and a Rampaging Baloths. The latter went the distance.
Going forward, I definitely want more removal. I had a ton of mana almost all the time, so getting as much bang for each card is ideal. A few more landfall guys wouldn’t hurt either. My opponents didn’t seem to have a ton of removal, so when I did make an army, it stuck around. More on this will follow...
As to your opinion on running more removal, I would obviously agree. I have found to really like Chain Reaction which is a surprise. I also have Lavalanche, Blasphemous Act, Last One Standing, Gaze of Granite. and (soon hopefully) Toxic Deluge. Deluge will take the place of Lavalanche and the only reason it stuck around over Savage Twister for now is because it can hit walkers if needed. But, it really isn't very good. Good Ol' Damnation is a solid card too.
Angry Omnath will definitely be high on the list of things to add. I spent most of the time in both games without any landfall triggers, and his floor is probably just a red Rampaging Baloths, which is still great.
EDIT: Another thing I noticed during the games was the relative lack of pressure that my planeswalker felt while he was on the table. Therefore, Nissa, Vital Force will also be high on the list of replacements. Her ultimate is extremely easy to achieve compared to most planeswalkers and it's very cohesive with what the deck wants to do. I would suggest more people put more planeswalkers in their deck to go along with their suite of board wipes and other removal.
Regarding MLD: I don't do anything with MLD but if you play it and get complaints from someone that also plays a similar strategy, I feel that is on them rather than you. So, if I was in the situation you are where playing it gets me grief from others when they do the same thing, I would probably just double down on it
This is in my list of cards to add as well because of the usefulness of it and because sacrificing a land can be beneficial in this deck (or, at least, not detrimental). I haven't added it yet since it is 7 mana and I am not sure what to cut for it. Due to playing against an artifact deck, I like Into the Core since it gets rid of 2 artifacts and is an Instant. I may need to swap these two eventually; I am not sure.
I don't generally like mass exile effects. I remember when Perilous Vault was printed and I looked at it as a "better" Oblivion Stone. But then my stuff is exiled too and I can often get things back if they are destroyed but being exiled is tougher to recover from.
Pernicious Deed on the other hand is something I have in my list to add. I got close to adding it but then I realized Gaze of Granite hit Planeswalkers while Deed does not. This was the biggest reason I kept it out, though telegraphing my play with Deed is also a bit of a detriment. On the other hand, the interaction with Teeg (no one plays him yet, but I can see him making an appearance eventually) is interesting and I can activate it at instant timing. So, even if people play around it, I can blow the board on my opponent's turn and be the first to rebuild. I might just decide to cut one of the damage based wraths for this (probably Chain Reaction).
Thanks for the suggestions and the thought out rationale for them. I will have to give some of these some more thought.
I will have another post below to provide my game summaries from last night as well as my current thoughts of the deck. I decided to break it out because it got really long.
We played 2 more games last night and I won 1 and Aminatou won the other. The first game started off kind of slow for me where I essentially just had a bunch of wraths and removal. This created a scenario where I was wrathing the board somewhat often but I was never actually getting to the point of building up a board state. Eventually, this meant that I was taken out by the Saheeli player without ever having actually done much in the game. Aminatou won shortly thereafter.
The second game went a bit better. I had Farhaven Elf, Yavimaya Dryad, and Temur Sabertooth in hand. I was able to ramp pretty heavily to the point where I eventually was able to get all my basics out of my deck. One play I enjoyed was that on Turn 5 I cast Lord Windgrace and then Turn 6 I cast Realms Uncharted. The player put the 2 lands I expected in the graveyard and I just got them back with Lord Windgrace.
The odd thing about this game is that I didn't really get any heavy hitters. I still drew a lot of "answer" cards. I did draw a Borborygmos but I had searched out so many lands, that I didn't do much with it. Mina and Denn is great for this as I did get them a little later (Borborygmos ended up being put on the bottom of my library before Mina and Denn hit) so I have ways to get lands back to my hand, but it just didn't happen when I needed it to. My Omnath, Borborygmos, and Multani just languished in my deck for quite a long time so it became difficult to win through damage. I ended up winning off of Lavalanche to kill Saheeli and then Eternal Witness to get it back to kill of Aminatou. I still don't like Lavalanche as a wrath, but maybe I need to treat it as something of a Win Condition. However, if I do that, Comet Storm is way better. I might just have to find a way to get Comet Storm in the deck.
A couple of things to note in the last game:
Aminatou almost won off of Exsanguinate and Debt to the Deathless. The life loss they pose is hard to come back from but the immense life gain they give the caster is even harder to handle. I am not sure what I want to do about this. Erebos is a good option to stop the life gain, but Aminatou has shown they are going to just tutor up Debt to the Deathless (the one I am more concerned about) to just end the game there with the life loss so preventing life gain isn't as relevant. I have given thought to something like Sadistic Sacrament as a way to stop a few different things from each player. Depending on how often Debt to the Deathless is winning the game for Aminatou (or any other specific card is winning the game for anyone else) Sacrament seems like a pretty good card to include.
Beyond that, I am finding that though I have attempted to make swaps on a 1-to-1 basis for win cons (cut Avenger, get Omnath for example). I know with all the changes, I may have gone down on my threat a little too much as I don't think I added a true replacement for Baloths for example. Titania was supposed to be the replacement, but she is expensive, so the budget hasn't allowed it yet. Also, I don't think she is good enough anyway since I don't have a lot of ways to get lands into the graveyard from the battlefield. I still don't like Baloths because the amount of wraths in the meta is too high to make this a consistent win con. Ob Nixilis, as suggested, is probably the right call for this instead of Titania.
After playing a few games as the list is now, I am also finding that I think I have too much ramp and too many "answers" (mostly wraths). This means the wraths get stuck in my hand due to now having anything to destroy and the ramp becomes much less impactful as the game moves on and ramping everything out does hurt Borborygmos and Lord Windgrace as it gives me fewer lands in hand to discard.
With all of these things in mind, I think I may need to cut down on wraths and answers, cut down on ramp, and increase threats beyond what I have. I wouldn't mind more utility cards too, like Sacrament. As of now, my thoughts for additions are:
The main thing with Deed is I want to cut down on wraths in general but at least one is a swap with Deed for the reasons mentioned above. Toxic Deluge is most likely going to make it in instead of one of the other current wraths. Brontodon is one I didn't go into detail on above but it is mostly to deal with Torpor Orb. World Breaker does it too, so either one of those is fine. The cards I am thinking of cutting are:
Going down the list:
Acidic Slime - This would be a tough call, but World Breaker is 2 mana more, exiles, and is (more or less) repeatable. I found last night that I ended up with an Acidic Slime in hand I didn't want to cast since nothing was on the board. With World Breaker, I could cast it to exile a land and then just sac it to get it back and do something later. At least it then isn't stuck in my hand.
Blasphemous Act, Chain Reaction, Lavalanche - This is the desire to cut down on wraths. As you can see, I have 3 to cut and 2 to add so if I went with these changes, I go down by 1. That might be the "safe" play for now.
Burnished Hart, Skyshroud Claim - This is a desire to cut down on the ramp and these are the worst 2 in my opinion. Hart is not an ETB so I can't bounce it with Sabertooth to use it again and it is mana intensive. Skyshroud Claim is 4 mana (net 2 since the lands enter untapped) but at that time I want to do something different). I am keeping Cultivate for now since it puts a land in hand which works well for a lot of things. I still want it to put a land on the field so I can ramp too (so no Seek the Horizon in this spot).
Reclamation Sage, Into the Core - If I move into World Breaker and/or Brontodon, I think I would prefer to not overload myself on this type of answer so I would probably cut the Sage. Into the Core is questionable. I like the Instant timing but it is a one shot effect. World Breaker is a bit slower but more powerful over the course of the game.
Rubblehulk - When the deck was getting going, Rubblehulk was a great card since it was a big creature and I could make something bigger as it was attacking as a surprise. As time has gone on though, I have found it is not really pulling its weight.
Terminate - Just working to cut down on spot removal. Not sure if this is the right call, but of the timing ones I have, this is the one I would cut.
Turntimber Sower - This card has been performing worse and worse as the deck evolves. It has a cool synergy with Boborygmos, but that is about it. I don't care anough about the plants (I have only gotten 4 at most from it) and when I do get them, they get me 1 land card back. Life from the Loam will be going in at some point. I didn't add it to the list up top as I am not sure when the budget allows for it with all the other changes I am thinking of. It could be as soon as this week if I find I can fit it in.
I am not sure how many of these cuts are right or how many will actually change, but I do think there is a high likelihood that they get taken out as I try to find the right balance for all my ramp, answers, threats, and utility. I am also still not sure 41 lands is the right number and I may cut it down again to 40 but so far 41 is working out well and cutting ramp may mean I am better off for now to keep the land count that high.
- Akoum Hellkite: kills Thopters and Servos, keeps planeswalkers from going ultimate.
- Invader Parasite: all three common opponents play a bunch of basic Islands, and two of them play a bunch of basic Plains, so this could do a nice chunk of damage.
- Retreat to Kazandu: another way to get more mileage out of your landfall triggers.
Also, has anyone tried to implement a Desert package with Ramunap Ruins and some more cycling lands, or are they just not strong enough?