Our group has decided to start a new league for EDH where we chose a theme, and a set of rules, and build around those. We had a similar league going with the C18 commanders (I had Lord Windgrace which was documented in this thread here.
That one had a few issues with it and the issues were mostly related to the fact that two of the decks required certain card types (Artifacts and Enchantments) while the other 2 were a bit more free in their deckbuilding. This also led to MLD being included in those decks because it was one of the axes they could truly combat the ease of Artifact and Enchantment hate. Due to the way that hurt the deck I was playing, I made significant changes to my deck to blow up the lands first and at times when it would hurt me the least. This led to nights where almost every game, all the lands were getting blown up which really isn't fun for anyone.
So, these issues led us to start a new league that a) provide more freedom in the deckbuilding process and b) discouraged certain strategies. We also wanted to stick with some sort of theme, so it wasn't just "bring whatever deck you want". The league is still the same 4 people from the last one. Some people have expressed interest in joining but we would want to get at least 2 more people to join (we won't do 5 people) so maybe the next league will have more participants.
In the end, we decided on 2 color decks as our theme. To promote color balance, we all chose what we wanted our main color to be. If there was conflict, we would roll a die to determine who had to choose another color. Luckily, we all chose a different main color (White was left out). I chose Blue. Then, we were all randomly assigned 2 supporting colors and we got to choose which one we wanted. This, again, was to create variety and force people to play something different rather than exactly what they might have chosen on their own. The main issue with it was color imbalance and overlaps in color combination choices. We did not want people to have the same 2 color combo and we also didn't want any one color to show up in more than 2 decks.
Here is where everyone started with their 2 options:
Black: Dimir or Golgari
Blue: Dimir or Izzet
Green: Gruul or Golgari
Red: Izzet or Rakdos
Black chose Dimir and Blue chose Dimir. Green chose Gruul and Red chose Rakdos. Blue and Black rolled to see who got what and Blue ended up with Golgari and Blue with Dimir. This then led to 3 black decks. Us three then rolled a die and the lowest had to choose something different. Unfortunately for Rakdos, they lost the die roll. So, they chose 2 new cards from the pile (in addition to the Red they started with) and then could make any color deck they wanted from those 3. They ended up choosing White, Red, and Blue. In the end, they decided to go with White/Blue as their deck.
I am not sure how to better determine color choices. In the next league, we might come up with something different that allows for less overlap in the choices. We just want to avoid the same color showing up in all decks, but we ended up seeing 3 players have a color combination that another player had and, initially, no one had white.
So, I ended up with Dimir and I started off building an Etrata, the Silencer. However, I found that for her to really work, there was a lot of support needed as she would eventually cost too much to do anything after killing one player (if she even got to that point) and, since her trigger is no optional, she would not likely stick around long enough to ever kill with Commander Damage.
I changed it up and went with The Scarab God. This gave me some graveyard interaction that I like, and it lets me steal things from other players as needed. I don’t like that he exiles stuff, so I will likely just try to steal things from other players.
So, to start, here is my initial deck list (I don’t know if we are starting this league this week or not, so this may change prior to the actual start as I goldfish a little):
I started off with a zombie subtheme because of his ability but moved away from it. I kept a couple cards for it, but there is not a strong zombie theme here as a) I wanted the deck to be able to function without the general so more utility was needed and b) the general provides a way to get zombies anyway. The two main cards I kept for this were Grave Titan and Army of the Damned. Grave Titan took up a relatively large portion of my budget, but I think he is worth it. Army of the Damned is cheap (money wise) and gives me a win con. Even without being able to attack, that many zombies just works very well with The Scarab God.
The rest of the deck is meant to be utility and answers as well as trying to fit in card draw. There are a fair number of counters here as I want to be able to handle a lot of different situations and counters are one of the better ways to do that. I wouldn’t mind more but it is hard to fit too many. Windfall and Whispering Madness help refill my hand while also filling graveyards. Time Reversal, Game Plan, Memory (off Commit//Memory), and Day’s Undoing refill my hand while also getting my graveyard back into my library as needed.
I have several creatures that have ETB effects (mostly to kill other creatures) as I want to be able to get value out of them when bringing them back with the God if necessary. I have 1 or 2 spot removal cards and then a few wraths or mass bounce. My wraths are not the greatest due to budget constraints, but I think they are serviceable for now.
Ramp is light, but I will see how much more I may need. I am not sure what else I might want to add. Note that there are a few cards that didn’t make the cut due to budget constraints so there are some less desirable cards. I have a list of other cards to add later.
I will post our rules and prize structure in the post below as this one is getting quite long.
Also, since this is predicated on sticking to a budget, here is the cost of everything to start with (basic lands do not count against the budget):
Bojuka Bog 1.69
Cabal Stronghold 0.89
Choked Estuary 0.99
Dimir Guildgate 0.08
High Market 1.96
Island 0
Sunken Hollow 2.29
Swamp 0
Tainted Isle 2.36
Temple of Deceit 2.49
Agent of Erebos 0.2
Archaeomancer 0.14
Archfiend of Depravity 0.85
Bontu the Glorified 1.7
Burnished Hart 0.99
Chainer Dementia Master 2.79
Demon of Dark Schemes 0.49
Dimir Cutpurse 0.5
Duplicant 0.99
Fleshbag Marauder 0.23
Grave Titan 12.32
Gray Merchant of Asphodel 0.25
Havengul Lich 1.32
Kagemaro First to Suffer 1.57
Kefnet the Mindful 0.49
Kokusho the Evening Star 4.55
Krav the Unredeemed 0.76
Merciless Executioner 0.25
Notion Thief 0.49
Noxious Gearhulk 2.49
Phyrexian Plaguelord 0.14
Plaguecrafter 0.81
Ravenous Chupacabra 1.03
Shadowborn Demon 0.57
Sire of Stagnation 0.75
Solemn Simulacrum 4.42
Teferi Mage of Zhalfir 2.37
Thief of Blood 0.35
Toothy Imaginary Friend 1.19
Arcane Denial 0.36
Army of the Damned 0.79
Blue Sun's Zenith 0.87
Commit // Memory 0.49
Counterspell 0.75
Countersquall 2.49
Crux of Fate 0.49
Day's Undoing 2.55
Devastation Tide 0.28
Dig Through Time 1.34
Dimir Signet 0.99
Disallow 2.84
Evacuation 1.66
Exsanguinate 3.6
Fact or Fiction 0.49
Game Plan 0.16
Hero's Downfall 2.66
Mission Briefing 3.38
Mutilate 0.47
Overwhelming Intellect 0.25
Phyrexian Reclamation 2.96
Silumgar's Command 0.17
Sol Ring 2.71
Talisman of Dominance 1.16
Time Reversal 1.49
Undermine 1.31
Whip of Erebos 2.33
Whispering Madness 0.33
Windfall 0.63
Wipe Away 1.29
Total new cards price 99.04
Everyone gets a $100 budget to build their deck to start.
Commanders do not count against the budget.
Every week, players get an additional $25 to their budget to add cards.
Any unused budget carries over (including anything not used in the initial $100).
Players get 2 points for winning the game.
Players get 1 point for killing another player.
Players lose .5 points for every basic land they actively destroy
The reason for not having the Commander not count against the budget was that we wanted people to be able to choose their preferred commander without worrying about it taking up a huge chunk of the budget. The rest of the cards in the deck can be moved out and swapped in but the general is hard to change mid-season.
We decided to increase the weekly budget to $25 from $20 as we feel that the extra $5 is not game breaking but allows for a few more $5-$10 cards every so often without getting stuck waiting weeks to add them with no other changes. This may prove to be too high, but we will see.
The loss of points is solely meant to discourage MLD. It does hurt Strip Mine/Crucible type interactions but not so much as Basics are likely to be the targets in those cases anyway. And, it does not cause something like Annihilator or Wildfire to make the person lose points. One thing it does count for is something like Keldon Firebombers since it causes lands to go down to a certain number so basics are inevitably going to be part of that. We were also going to add in Infect kills and Infinite Combos but we felt they were dealt with easily and didn't pose as much of a problem in our group so we left them off for now. We may find we want to add something else in at some point.
We didn’t really discuss things like Sunder or Death Cloud but the intent is clear so I am not sure how much people are going to try to game this part of the system. We didn’t want to go overboard with this and we wanted nonbasics to be fair game (though I don’t see Ruination making an appearance).
Prizes
1st place – 5 packs
2nd place – 3 packs
3rd and 4th place – 2 packs
Winner of a separate point system – the current Buy-a-Box promo
We changed up the prize structure to make it less top-heavy and to ensure everyone always gets something each season. Each season is a month. So, our idea was to buy a box at the beginning of each set release and use that for prizes for 3 months. This also gives us a BaB promo to use as an additional prize. Each month, there are 12 packs on the line.
BaB Points
First Blood – 1 Point
Cast your general 4 or more times in a game – 1 point
Kill a player with Commander Damage – 1 point
These points are added up over the course of the entire 3 months and the person with the most points gets the BaB promo. We tried to make them easy to achieve with nearly any build (to discourage players for building specifically to the point system) and we only have a couple to make it easier for bookkeeping.
The first game, Skullbriar just trounced us. He got an early Skullbriar and then cast an Increasing Savagery on it. Noyan Dar exiled it but only after they attacked so they counters remained. A turn or two later, they got Skullbriar again followed by Savagery with Flashback. Again, Noyan Dar allowed it to resolve and then tried to Swords it when it swung at them. I was already having a pretty bad time in the game and when Noyan Dar, for the second time, allowed Skullbriar to get their counters before exiling it, I just countered their Swords so Skullbriar could kill them. Since Skullbriar keeps his counters, I was more upset that Noyan Dar kept allowing him to get counters before trying to deal with him.
This was an obvious mistake on my part as I clearly should have countered the Skullbriar or let it be exiled so I could counter it the next time, but I just wanted the game to be over.
Predictably, Skullbriar came after me next and killed me. They ended up killing Thromok 4 or 5 turns later. All in all, the game lasted about 25 minutes.
The second game was a bit better. I did some more early on and eventually got a Notion Thief into Whispering Madness. Noyan Dar bounced my Notion Thief but I just replayed it. I drew 28 cards and luckily found my Reliquary tower. Unfortunately, it did take a lot of resources to pull this off since I had to spend an additional 4 mana to cast the Thief that I only had 4 mana available. I decided to attack Skullbriar which got them down to 1. Then, they cast a spell which I countered with Undermine to kill them. Noyan Dar just attacked me next since I had very little life left.
The third game was actually going pretty well. A lot of back and forth was happening and a lot of interaction. Bounce and kill spells were flying and players were trying to build up board states to kill people. Unfortunately, I had a misplay in that I allowed Thromok to keep their Zendikar Resurgent on the field instead of bouncing it (I don't remember if I had a Wheel/Twister effect in hand or not). This meant they had a ton of mana that they just funneled into a Molten Disaster. Since it had Split Second, we could do nothing about it and we all died right there. A bit of an anticlimactic end.
Overall, I am still not impressed with the deck. It feels like it can't quite do anything very well and is split between a creature based deck and a spell based deck. Both try to control the game, but the creatures are not working out as well as I want. I was going to add in the 4 things I could find to deal with Split Second, but I decided against them for now. I am going to try to simply control the game more (and not let Thromok get a bunch of mana) and then try to amass an army of Zombies with Army of the Damned, Empty the Pits, and Rise from the Tides. Empty the Pits is interesting in that it takes a bunch of mana to be good (or a large graveyard) but it is an Instant which can be very relevant to just close out a game.
Beyond that, I am doubling down on the spell based control while cutting some of the creatures. I am adding in a couple smaller creatures too. I am also considering changing my general to be Sygg, River Cutthroat over The Scarab God since he comes down sooner and can potentially draw me cards every turn (depending on who my opponents attack). If nothing else, he makes for a good blocker for Skullbriar.
I am still tweaking the card choices a little, but I think I am going to end up with about 15 cards that I am swapping out. My next post will detail some of those changes a little more in depth.
I decided to post my current thoughts on the deck a bit earlier than expected. We won't be playing again for almost another 2 weeks (I might try to play this in a normal game before then) so there might be a few more changes as I goldfish a little more. As of now, here is what I am doing:
Notably, I added 2 dual lands to make my colors a little more consistent and Terrain Generator to try to ramp. I also cut quite a few creatures that were either for reanimation (Chainer and the Demon) or board control (Fleshbag and Executioner). I left Plaguecrafter for now since it is the better of the 3 and I want to see if it ever becomes relevant. I am thinking that with my bounce and wraths, I don't need it. I will likely cut it later for an actual wrath though I don't know what that would be.
I added in 2 win conditions in Empty the Pits and Rise from the Tides. I am not sure how good the latter is but I can see the former leading to surprise wins due to being an instant. I also added in 3 counter spells and Time Stop to help protect me and stop others from doing things. Engulf the Shore also helps stop others from doing too much. Murderous Cut and Slaughter Pact were added to give me cheap, Instant ways to deal with creatures. Slaughter Pact doesn't hit Skullbriar which is the biggest issue with it.
Spellseeker gets me my counters when I need them and will tutor for my Rift which is likely to be included in the next round of changes. I may end up including Merchant Scroll and/or Mystical Tutor as well to ensure I always have access to my bounce and counter spells when I need them. Shadowmage Infiltrator gives me a cheap creature to block Skullbriar as well as a way to draw cards. Mindblade Render is exactly the same reasoning for including it but it is 1 mana less.
Capsize is just an all purpose answer and Nihil Spellbomb is a way to stop Noyan Dar's Rise from the Tides as well as any other graveyard shenanigans people may try.
I am also pretty sure I am going to swap out The Scarab God for Sygg, River Cutthroat. I will update the list in the first post before we play again to reflect these changes. As mentioned, I may make other smaller changes so I want to wait until then before updating the list.
We finally got together again to play some more games with our decks. I updated mine to be Sygg, River Cutthroat, the UW player updated theirs to be Medomai, the Ageless, and the RG player updated theirs to be Xenagos, God of Revels. Skullbriar kept theirs as Skullbriar. This led to games playing out a little differently, but I think they all still played pretty well.
Game 1
This game started off well for Skullbriar in that they got Skullbriar and Drana, Liberator of Malakir early and just kept beating down. However, they got stuck on 3 lands for a long time. Xenagos had the same problem in that they got stuck on 3 lands too but Xenagos was doing very little.
I ended up getting Sygg and Dimir Cutpurse which allowed me to keep cards in my hand and make Skullbriar discard cards. I also got an early Notion Thief. I ended up discarding my Whispering Madness (without another Wheel/Twister effect). I figured the rest of the cards in my hand were better at the time and that I would eventually draw into another twister effect.
Medomai was cast and they equipped up with Fireshrieker. Before they went to their first extra turn, they cast Deep Analysis. Which meant that I drew 2 cards instead of them. They then tried to Wrath which I countered with Forbid and I bought it back. I ended up just blocking Skullbriar with Notion Thief to save me some life.
A turn or two later, Medomai tried to come at me to get 2 more extra turns. I ended up casting Slaughter Pact to destroy it, they cast Desertion, I cast Undermine, they cast Arcane Denial, I cast Swan Song. In the end, my spell got through, I got rid of 2 of their counters, and they ended up with a Bird. I am glad I came out of top of that battle. Skullbriar was able to keep dealing damage though, luckily, I had blockers so they went after Medomai.
A turn or two later, Medomai got back a Wrath of God with Call to Mind which they held onto. I ended up dropping in a Ravenous Chupacabra to deal with Drana and give me a blocker for Skullbriar which I blocked the turn after Medomai got Wrath of God back. I also used Silumgar's Command to bounce Skullbriar and kill some other creature (I forget which).
I then dropped in a Grave Titan to try to get the Wrath to come out (I wanted Xenagos's board gone). Medomai cast Wrath. Skullbriar couldn't recast their general since they were still at 5 lands. They did get a Yavimaya Elder though which got them some lands.
I dropped in a Mindblade Render to draw a couple cards. This is when I was at 19 life. Xenagos didn't do much. Medomai cast their general again. Skullbriar cast Merciless Executioner to get rid of Medomai and my Sygg that I had cast. I then cast Spellseeker on my turn and got a Mission Briefing. I then attacked with the Render to draw a card and passed the turn.
It got around to Medomai a little later and they attacked Skullbriar to get 2 extra turns. Xenagos had a Domri Rade out at 6 counters so they attacked Domri with Burnished Hart during both extra turns. They then passed to Skullbriar who attacked Medomai since they looked open. Medomai cycled Decree of Justice to get blockers. They then passed to me. I attacked Domri with a Bird I had from one of my spells getting hit by Swan Song. I then dropped Thief of Blood to get rid of all the counters (11) on Skullbriar. I know the Thief got rid of the counters on Domri, but I liked the idea that we worked together with creatures to get rid of it.
I passed the turn and Xenagos cast a couple things. Medomai tried to come after me to take a couple extra turns but they forgot that I had the Thief of Blood. They tried to bounce it when they realized and I countered it. I blocked Medomai and killed it. They then cast Call to Mind to get back Decree of Justice and they just hard cast it so they had some Angels for blocking and then passed the turn.
Skullbriar cast Verdant Force and passed the turn. I attacked Xenagos for 14 while they were at 13. They tried to Crop Rotation into a land that gained them 2 life but they didn't have one (I think there are only "white" lands that let their controller gain 2 or more life). I then cast Crux of Fate to get rid of everything Medomai and Skullbriar had and then I cast a Notion Thief followed by Whispering Madness. I drew 8 cards. Ciphered Madness onto it, played a land, and passed the turn.
Medomai drew nothing so they just recast their general. Skullbriar did the same thing and passed the turn. I cast Sygg for the 3rd time and attacked with Notion Thief. I also cast Kokusho, the Evening Star to give me a blocker for Medomai. I passed to Medomai who didn't do anything. Skullbriar then cast Skullbriar and Oona's Blackguard which was important since it has flying. They passed to me so I just attacked them with Kokusho and Sygg. They blocked with Skullbriar and the Blackguard.
Medomai drew Cast Out and tried to get my Notion Thief but I countered it with Swan Song. They tried to attack me so I just cast Engulf the Shore. They dropped in Medomai again and passed the turn. Skullbriar killed my Notion Thief that I had flashed back in and passed the turn.
I cast Sygg, Kokusho and Bontu, the Glorified and passed the turn. Medomai cast Commit // Memory from their graveyard which worked out since my hand was pretty bad. Skullbriar dropped in a Noxious Gearhulk and bulked it up with Increasing Savagery. They swung 15 at me so I blocked with Sygg and Kokusho and sacrificed Sygg to Bontu. On my turn, I cast Archaeomancer to get back Crux of Fate. I sacrificed Archaeomancer to Bontu and then destroyed all non-Dragon creatures. I then attacked Medomai with Bontu and got them down to 1.
Medomai drew nothing and passed. Skullbriar didn't do much either. I drew for turn which was a Havengul Lich. I used this to reanimate Kokusho and then sac it to Bontu to kill both remaining players for the win.
Game 2
This game was a little worse but not by much. I won't go into as much detail as above since I don't want to type that much. I was still able to interact and I kept control of the board as best as possible. However, since Xenagos and Skullbriar actually got lands we had to deal with their board states a lot. Specifically, Xenagos kept dropping in big creatures and I kept bouncing everything. Unfortunately, I only had a Twister effect once so most of the time they just kept dropping their hand onto the board. Medomai was basically useless this entire game as they had pretty much no counters, no wraths, and no twister effects which meant I was on my own to deal with the other two players. It was an uphill battle the entire way and a Whispering Madness with 10 cards in hand and a few other things allowed me to dig for answers (as well as giving things to Medomai) but it wasn't enough.
One key point in the game, Xenagos cast Insult copied and then cast Overwhelming Stampede and Overrun. This was when they had a bunch of tokens on the field. Before the Stampede resolved, I cast Engulf the Shore to bounce everything so we didn't all die. They still attacked me with an Anger that they recast so I just blocked it so I wouldn't take 8.
I had Empty the Pits in hand for a while in this game, but I never got a good opportunity to cast it. I only had 4 black sources, but my graveyard was pretty full. The way the game was going just never allowed me to cast it for any real value.
Towards the tail end of the game, I was still fighting, but I ended up drawing too many lands in a row and I just ran out of gas. I ended up "scooping" (we don't allow scooping so Skullbriar still had to attack me) and I got out of the game.
Game 3
In this game, Skullbriar ended up leaving so we agreed to alter our decks if people had the cards with them since this wouldn't count as a League game. Because it wasn't a League game, Medomai switched decks over to Kolaghan, the Storm’s Fury and Xenagos just changed their general to Ruric Thar, the Unbowed. I added in Cyclonic Rift. I was going to add in Drowned Catacomb but because of the other games, I need to find room for Damnation so I am going to try to save up for it.
The game started off decent. I got Sygg down early as usual and then cast a Solemn Simulacrum a little later. I was stuck on 3 lands and a Talisman for a while but I got another couple lands. The important part is that I had no actual Islands until Solemn. After that, I dropped down Spellseeker to get Rift from my Library. I only had Engulf the Shore in hand up until this point. I ended up casting that to bounce my Spellseeker, a Tilonalli's Summoner and some tokens, and a Falkenrath Aristocrat. For only having the one Island, it still got a lot taken care of.
Next turn, I didn't do much as I wanted to keep Rift open to deal with anything that might happen. I eventually dropped Rift and then, a couple turns later since I was trying to do some building of my own, I recast Spellseeker to get Mission Briefing. This was basically to allow me to Cyclonic Rift again if I needed to. What ended up happening was that Xenagos dropped in a Wolfbriar Elemental and kicked it 14 times. Then, they cast Burn at the Stake to try to kill me. I had no counter spells in the graveyard and none in hand. I have 4 mana open and only had a Mission Briefing in hand. I decided to spin the wheel and saw a Swamp and a Swan Song on top. I binned both and cast Swan Song to counter the Burn at the Stake. This was extremely timely as all the tokens went away next turn (don't remember if it was me or Kolaghan). From here, neither of the other players were able to do much and I beat down with a Kokusho for a couple turns and then cast a Mutilate to kill everything which killed Kokusho which killed the Ruric Thar player.
Next turn, they cast Kolaghan and equipped it up with everything and I just bounced Grafted Exoskeleton again. Since they had very little in hand, and I had a couple creatures, they just scooped at this point.
Overall, the games we played went very well, even though I lost the second game. The deck is performing much better and I think I have a clear direction I want to go with the deck. I have about 7 or 8 cuts I want to make that I will try to get done tonight. I know I need more sweepers. I think I want more spot removal. Two of the cards I am looking at cutting are creature based Spot removal (Duplicant and Noxious Gearhulk) and that is mostly because they are 6 mana.
Sweepers I am looking at are Decree of Pain mostly for the Cycling (Xenagos and Skullbriar do a lot with tokens with Avenger of Zendikar and a few other things) and this is an Instant timing way of dealing with them. I think I have the best bounce spells, but I might add in a couple of the others like Coastal Breach or Crush of Tentacles. I would rather they be Instants but I think I already have the Instant mass bounce spells.
All in all, the deck is certainly coming together. I am going to go through and determine what else I want to cut and will post that in the next post.
After reviewing the games I played and the cards in my deck, here are my thoughts on cuts and additions:
Cuts Summary
Duplicant, Gearhulk, and Plaguecrafter are cards that seem alright, but just don't do a lot when I need them to. I am trying to be more of a spellslinger deck so Sorcery timing creatures, especially 6 drops, are not what I want.
Krav is not doing as much as I want him to. I don't often get enough creatures to sacrifice to him so it is a dead card in hand when I am staring down an army from my opponents. Empty the Pits falls into this category due to the high cost. I like it since it is an Instant, but to make it useful, I need to exile a lot from my graveyard (I will almost never have enough lands to get any more than 6 Zombies off it). Rise from the Tides is similar in that it is too much to make it worthwhile since there are a lot of twister effects and I can get blown out by grave hate.
Mutilate is not a very good wrath but it was a cheaper option. I need to find a different cheaper option that is not quite as conditional. Overwhelming Intellect is 6 mana and I like it, but I would rather be able to keep up multiple counters, or just wrath the board, rather than spending all my mana on countering one creature.
Because I am potentially going down below 20 creatures, Reclamation is less useful. It gets back great stuff, but it seems like it is more and more likely to be a dead card. It depends on if any additions are creatures as well, but I think I need at least 22 creatures minimum to make this worthwhile since I have 21 now and I had it one game above where it did something, but not a lot.
Nihil Spellbomb is just not needed. I added it as a last minute addition due to budget concerns and because the other card was just worse. But, with the amount of twister effects and other player's gravehate, it really isn't necessary. Plus, not many people use their graveyards as it is now.
Grave Titan is on the fence due to his high cost and the fact that it is difficult to swing into anybody with all their creatures. The mass bounce spells help keep things clear for him, but that takes a lot mana to bounce everything and cast him. I still need ways to end the game though and this is one of those ways. If I can find anything that works better in the deck, I may go with that, but for now this will need to do.
Adds Summary
Rift, Deadly Tempest, and Decree of Pain are my additional sweepers. Rift is just awesome and needs to be in the deck. Decree draws me cards and lets me cycle to get rid of small tokens at Instant timing. Tempest is one that gets rid of my opponents' boards as well but can also be a win condition if they did get a large amount of tokens.
Black Sun's Zenith is interesting in that it stops Skullbriar from ever being cast again but it is kind of slow so I am not sure how much it will actually do. I am willing to give it a try though since it is still a sweeper and my spot removal can get rid of the rest.
Speaking of spot removal, I am adding 4 cards: Malicious Affliction and Snuff out only hit nonblack creatures but getting an extra copy or casting for free are worth the restriction. Rapid Hybridization and Pongify are just really cheap. The creatures they leave behind might be an issue but likely less of an issue than the creature I am destroying.
Mulldrifter just draws me cards and gets me a flyer that can block or be a beater as needed. And finally, Insidious Will just gives me yet another counterspell to hopefully force through things I need or answer my opponents as needed while being cheaper and less conditional than Overwhelming Intellect.
With my most recent changes, the deck is starting to actually come together into something I enjoy playing. I had to change my thought process for what I want the deck to be (along with changing the general) but the current iteration seems to be functioning much better.
I played a couple games with this deck last night. 2 were 1v1 with the Skullbriar player in our League and I won both. Since it is was 1v1, it isn't really worth going over what the deck did or didn't do. Both of our decks are built around multiplayer and we were just playing to kill time while waiting for Modern to start.
Later in the night, we did get a league game going. Skullbriar vs Ruric Thar vs Medomai vs Sygg. I will say, Ruric Thar is a beast against both my Sygg deck as well as the Medomai deck.
The game started off as most do: I got Sygg down early and Skullbriar got their general down early. I played a draw-go style so I didn't do much beyond play lands. At one point, Ruric Thar did cast Boundless Realms which I did not counter. I could have, but I only had the one and I wanted to save it. I am not sure if this was a mistake, but I let it go.
This allowed them to cast Ruric Thar a bunch of times (they got a Zendikar Resurgent later on as well). Skullbriar was leaving up Pernicious Deed mana, but never actually cracked it. Ruric Thar cost me 6 life and cost Medomai 6 or 12. At one point, I had a removal spell in hand but let Medomai take care of Ruric Thar so I could save my life. Luckily it worked out.
Sygg let me draw about 8-10 cards over the course of the game which kept me in it. I did draw 3 swamps in a row which was disappointing and then, a little later, I tutored for lands off Burnished Hart and saw 5 out of my top 6 cards were lands and the other was a Talisman. This was at a time when I had 20 lands on the field and 3 in hand so seeing that many right on top when I really needed to be drawing answers and threats was frustrating. I may cut a land at some point.
At one point in the game, I was down to 11 life. Ruric Thar was down to 3. I had Bontu and Sygg on the battlefield. Before my turn, I sacrificed Sygg to Bontu to gain life and make everyone lose life. I scried a land to the bottom. I started my turn and cast Mindlade Render and Sygg. This game me lethal on board to kill Ruric Thar if I needed to. Instead, Medomai attacked them to kill them and I let it happen since I wanted my creatures. It ended up not mattering as the board was wrathed so I sacrificed those two anyway to gain life and then Skullbriar cast Merciless Executioner to make me sac Bontu.
A couple turns later, I cast a Twister effect so Medomai cast White Sun's Zenith to get some cats in response. Skullbriar had rebuilt a little by this point too. I drew into a Devastation Tide so I cast that, cast Sygg, and cast Spellseeker to get Arcane Denial and passed the turn. Medomai passed and then Skullbriar tried to attack Medomai for 6 (they were at 8). They tried to Capsize and I countered it (mostly to get rid of Capsize). They couldn't do anything so they went to 2. On my turn, I swung for lethal into Medomai to kill them when I could.
Skullbriar tried to get in but I bounced his stuff. In the end, I ended up just being able to out value them 1v1 and won with Army of the Damned or Grave Titan or something (I don't remember exactly what I won with).
There were a number of times in the game where I could have been picked off or where I was in real danger of going too low. I wasn't the threat at the time luckily (Ruric Thar held that mantle for a long time) so there wasn't as much focus on me. Ruric Thar is a big problem though. My deck has very little life gain and a lot of spells. Just dealing with Ruric Thar is likely going to cost me games. I am not sure what the answer for that is since I cannot go under them or race them. I might just have to rely on Medomai and team up with them a little against a common enemy. I am not sure.
In any case, things are mostly working out as I want them to so, beyond trying to deal with Ruric Thar a little better, there isn't much more I am intending to change. As mentioned, I will likely cut a land and I already have Damnation slated for inclusion next week.
We played 4 games today and I won one. The fourth game, which I will go into a bit of detail below, was the worst loss. Overall, the deck is coming together though I was in a couple of precarious positions where I was casting a Twister effect to dig for an answer since I had nothing in hand. It kind of worked out, but I was on the back foot a bit in that game.
In the game I won, Ruric Thar ended up attacking Skullbriar and Medomai because they knew I had a Rift in hand. Medomai tried to save themselves but I countered it. They ended up losing that turn while Skullbriar just survived. The game got around to me and I killed Skulbriar and then, a couple turns later, I killed Ruric Thar.
2 other games were won by Ruric Thar (Medomai won another game in there). And Ruric Thar is becoming even more of a problem for my deck as well as Medomai. I have wraths and mass bounce to help, but taking 6 off Ruric Thar is a beating. In the final game, Medomai, who is also hurt by Ruric Thar, cast Desertion on him. This did basically nothing except kill both of us (though it was kind of our fault). Since Ruric Thar was out, we both had to hold off on spells. However, Medomai tried to exile my Kokusho so they could attack me and I tried to counter it. They countered back so I countered again. They had a final counter in hand so I just bounced everything. This meant that we each lost 18 life that turn. It put them to 3 and me to 11. I probably should have bounced everything before it got to their turn, but I was hoping they would attack someone else.
Our fight then led to Ruric Thar being able to untap and cast a Molten Disaster for X=11 and kicked. This killed all of us. They didn't have much more mana so if we didn't fight, Ruric Thar likely would not have won. Our decks are crippled with the presence of Ruric Thar to such a degree that I think we both need to put a higher focus on them.
As such, I have tweaked my deck considerably. I had not planned on making a lot of changes, but I think there are more things I need to do to combat Ruric Thar. One of the things I was going to do was add in Bone Shredder and Shriekmaw. I have decided against these for now for a couple reasons. One, I want to evolve into more of a draw-go deck. And two, these are basically only for Ruric Thar as I can deal with everything else pretty well. So, instead of going too high on the creature based destroy effects, I decided to go in a slightly different direction to help combat Ruric Thar: lifegain.
Now, lifegain on its own can be overvalued. But, with the right cards to keep me going, I think having some life gain would be helpful in the fight against Ruric Thar (and the other players). So, here are my changes:
Army of the Damned and Grave Titan have basically never done much for me. They are high in cost, and are very susceptible to removal, so I am not sure I will miss them being gone. I might have to add Grave Titan back in at some point, but I am not sure. Havengul Lich is being removed since my creature count is fairly low and I almost never want to see the card when I do see it. Thief of Blood and Black Sun's Zenith were here for Skullbriar mostly, but there are other ways to deal with Skullbriar.
I decided to cut Dimir Guildgate (a budget choice) for the superior Watery Grave. This leaves me with 3 lands that always enter tapped (Bojuka Bog, Fetid Pools, Temple of Deceit) which I think is fine.
I decided Mulldrifter didn't work as well in this shell as I wanted so I cut it for a Chemister's Insight. It draws me 4 cards total (I will almost always have a land to discard) so it should hopefully keep me going. I also added in Twilight Prophet for card draw and some life gain. It also causes life loss for my opponents which works well with Sygg if I hit something with CMC 3 or greater. I decided to cut 2 Twister/Wheel effects mostly to make room and because I think I just had too many. I am hoping Insight and Prophet (along with Kefnet) can keep my hand full so I don't need to twister as often.
Venser, Dream Eater, Noxious Gearhulk, and Stunt Double are creature based ways to deal with Ruric Thar and they also have other uses as well. Being able to get a big Multani or being able to gain life off destroying something or being able to bounce an uncounterable spell to someone's hand can be the difference between winning and losing. Dream Eater also gets me through a potential land clump or makes sure my next draw is not a bust.
Exsanguinate and Venser's Journal are here for the life gain. Exsanguinate can hopefully close games out when I need it to and Journal gives me no max hand size while also gaining me life during each of my upkeeps. If I can gain at least 4 life each turn (which should not be hard) it goes a long way to offsetting the 6 damage I take from Ruric Thar.
And, finally, Mystical Teachings. This gets me a lot of cards in my deck when I need them. An Instant-Timing tutor for Venser, or Cyclonic Rift, or a Counterspell, or even just a Notion Thief (in anticipation of a twister) or Stunt Double (for a blocker) can make or break a game. This doesn't get me a few key cards, but a lot of my stuff is Instant or has Flash so this seems like a no-brainer.
We are going to play again this week (though I am not sure how the holiday affects this) so I will provide another update by the end of the week. Hopefully this gives me a few tools to deal with Ruric Thar and still gives me enough to win games.
We didn't get to play many games last week. Just 1 and then one of our group had to leave. There unfortunately isn't much to report as I got knocked out really early. I then sat around for almost an hour before one of the players said they had to go. I later found out that the last two players ended up playing for another hour after I left so the game took almost 2.5 hours with me being knocked out about 30 minutes into it.
In any case, I am still trying to tweak the deck to further deal with Skullbriar and Ruric Thar. Skullbriar is just way too fast and Ruric Thar deals me too much damage. Since Skullbriar was the one that killed me right away last time, I decided to put a bit more focus on my removal spells.
Now, I have a total of 10 "removal" (some are just bounce) that are 3 mana or less. This includes Murderous Cut which I can delve for and Snuff Out which I can cast with life. The main issue with my removal is is the the things that can't target Skullbriar. Snuff Out, Slaughter Pact, and Malicious Affliction do not hit Black Creatures, so they are not very useful against Skullbriar. So, I am relying on my other spot removal, mass destroy effects, and mass bounce. I have decided to add in Go For the Throat as another cheap removal spell to deal with it. I had thought about Fatal Push but that is somewhat narrow so I don't think it would be as good.
I am also adding in Mystic Confluence to give me more bounce as needed. Since it can counter things or draw me cards, it seems worthwhile to try out. Kederekt Leviathan made it in as another creature based way of dealing with Ruric Thar and being able to play it from my graveyard can be useful. And, lastly, I added Crush of Tentacles. This was added because it lets me bounce everything when I need to (players can really get out of control with tokens and other permanents) and it potentially gives me a creature to beat down with as well.
Fitting these into the deck was a bit tough but I came up with 4. I decided to go down to 38 lands since I am still flooding and I have enough draw/twister effects to get my land drops. My curve is also low enough (though the Leviathan changes that a bit) that I think this is fine. I cut High Market because it really only works with Kokusho.
The other 3 cuts are likely controversial. I decided to go remove my Artifact ramp. I am not even sure this is right, but 2 main things have led me to this decision: Sygg wants to be cast early so I don't want to cast Artifact Ramp early anyway (Sol Ring is fine as it comes down turn 1 but it doesn't help cast Sygg). And, I am generally finding myself wanting to either cast a 3 drop creature after Sygg or holding up mana for countermagic that I don't want to spend the mana on the ramp anyway. This means that normally these cards are being cast on turn 4 or later. Still not the worst, but they are less useful when I don't cast them early.
I have also been finding that it is disappointing to see these later in the game when I really need answers. Drawing 3 cards to get land, land, Sol Ring when I need pretty much anything else to not lose feels bad. So going down on the ramp (which makes the big plays take longer) gives me more action and more spells that can actually affect the board. I feel this is a worthy trade off. I may eventually add Sol Ring back in, but I don't think the other two are worth it.
Interesting. I never gave it much of a thought. But that is an, honestly, fantastic card to get Sygg to trigger. I am not actively trying to get Sygg to trigger as he is there more for being cheap to cast and being in my colors. That being said, I won't shy away from something that can help trigger him even more often. Being that is 3 mana makes it very useful for casting on curve with Sygg coming down the turn before.
A quick glance through the deck and I don't know exactly what to cut. It looks like I have about 14-15 counterspells (or, counterspell-esque) cards. Some are soft counters or, like Venser, just return spells to hand. So, I am going to try to cut a counterspell for now and the best once to cut is probably Rewind. It is nice that it is "free" but it doesn't really help much in a counter war or if it gets countered and 4 is the top end for "just" a counterspell.
I might put more thought into it later but we play our games for this week in 8 hours and I think this is a good enough suggestion to try to get it in right away. Luckily I already have a copy from my Lord Windgrace deck that I just need to find before the morning
I played 3 games of this today and won two of them. Unfortunately, our Skullbriar player couldn't make it so that certainly changed things.
In both games I won, the Daxos of Meletis player didn't have a lot of counterspells so they weren't doing much. I was able to keep control of the game and get a few creatures on the board. Mindblade Render gave me a few early cards and otherwise I just used spells to keep control of the board. Ruric Thar did land a couple times but never stuck around for long. Daxos did end up wrathing a couple times too which helped.
The games I won ended up with Ruric Thar taking out Daxos where they couldn't do anything so they just died. And then I won a few turns later. In the game I lost Ruric Thar was trying to take out Daxos again and Daxos tried to get out of it. We ended up in a bit of a counter war but they had way more mana than I did. They drew 3 cards off Kefnet and cast Mystical Tutor to get another counter spell to win the counter war (I cast 2 counter spells but didn't have enough mana to cast another). Daxos survived and then just killed me (which is part of the reason I was trying to get Ruric Thar to kill them). I knew I couldn't survive them as my life total was 4 so I was hoping this would kill them. It did not.
I did see Kederekt Leviathan which bounced everything and allowed me to get in for 5. I alsd saw Go for the Throat to kill Ruric Thar and Mystic Confluence to draw 3 cards. I am mostly happy with my new additions. I do hope the Subordinate pans out as it seems like it makes sense with my general plus it lets me attack to get players down on life early.
Duskmantle Seer seems like an auto-include to me; the one Sygg deck I've faced had it and it was pretty brutal. Efficient body, evasive and kept continually drawing him cards.
Duskmantle Seer seems like an auto-include to me; the one Sygg deck I've faced had it and it was pretty brutal. Efficient body, evasive and kept continually drawing him cards.
Duskmantle Seer is also saying "Come at me, bro" which always wins bonus points.
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Duskmantle Seer seems like an auto-include to me; the one Sygg deck I've faced had it and it was pretty brutal. Efficient body, evasive and kept continually drawing him cards.
I will see if it makes sense to include. I like the stats and the effect causing life loss (though I am not a fan of letting my opponents draw cards). I might try to slot it in somewhere.
We played 3 games on Saturday for our league. I made 0 changes for this week and I have no real plans to make any coming up. I am not sold on Duskmantle Seer since letting Daxos draw cards on a consistent basis can be detrimental. I might add in Mana Drain since I have saved up my budget enough to do so. I am not sure what I would cut to make room for it though so hopefully I come up with something.
As usual, I got Sygg down on turn 2. Unfortunately, I started with 2 Islands and a Field of Ruin so I ended up just activating Field of Ruin to destroy a Skarrg, the Rage Pits so I could get a Swamp. Next turn I cast Dimir Cutpurse. I passed and Ruric Thar had cast an Anger. It got back to my turn and I cast Windfall since I had no lands. Daxos cast Path to Exile on Anger in response. I then hit Ruric Thar for 3 so I could draw another card and then I drew one at my end step.
A few turns passed without much happening. I cast a Fact or Fiction to try to get some cards. Ruric Thar cast a Spellbreaker Behemoth to help protect their creatures from being countered. The next turn they tried to cast Ruric Thar so I blew up the Behemoth and and countered Ruric Thar. They then moved to their end step and Daxos cast Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur. When it got to their end step, I cast Silumgar's Command to bounce it and give Ruric Thar's Legion Loyalist -3/-3. They recast Jin-Gitaxias to draw their cards but they tapped out to do so.
It got to my turn and I didn't really do anything. I drew a card and passed the turn. Since I had a Reliquary Tower on the field, Jin-Gitaxias didn't make me discard. Jarad then cast a Merciless Executioner to make me sac my Kefnet the Mindful and Daxos had to sac their Jin-Gitaxias.
Ruric Thar then cast their general which neither Daxos nor I countered. Daxos then dropped in a Resolute Archangel to go back up to 40 (from 23). When it got to my turn, I cast Decree of Pain to wrath the board. I ended up drawing 5 cards since Ruric Thar sacrificed one of their scions they had from Awakening Zone. Jarad ended up with 6 tokens from Hangarback Walker dying.
Jarad then cast Sorin Markov and I let it go. They targeted Daxos who then responded with Teferi's Protection. I countered it with Countersquall so they ended up going to 10 life. Jarad sacrificed a creature to put Daxos to 4 and then they attacked Daxos to kill them. At some point, I cast Venser's Journal to help keep my life total high. It never got blown up and gained me at least 20 life over the course of the game.
Ruric Thar came back down so I ended up killing it with Noxious Gearhulk. I then killed Sorin with Hero's Downfall. I passed the turn. Jarad cast Shape of the Wiitigo on one of their tokens. I let it resolve. Ruric Thar cast their general again so in response I blew up the token with the aura. On my turn, I drew a card and passed the turn. Jarad beefed up one of his tokens with Hunter’s Prowess. I cast Wipe Away that one. They cast Mikaeus the Unhallowed and passed the turn. Ruric Thar attacked me so I blocked with a Solemn Simulacrum I had and the Gearhulk. They assigned the damage order and I flashed in Stunt Double to copy Mikaeus. Gearhulk and Ruric Thar died. When Gearhulk came back from Undying, I blew up Jarad's Mikaeus.
On my turn I attacked Ruric Thar with Mikaeus and Gearhulk and I cast a Twilight Prophet and passed the turn. Jarad didn't do much and Ruric Thar tried to cast Urabrask, the Hidden. I countered it and they passed the turn. Jarad cast Falkenrath Noble and then attacked me. I blocked 1 and took one off the Nobel since the blocked creature died. Ruric Thar got to their turn and attacked me with Ruric Thar that they had cast the turn before. I cast Cyclonic Rift.
On my turn, I cast Exsanguinate for 12 which killed off Ruric Thar and Jarad which ended the game.
This game was mostly defined by Rhystic Study from Daxos. Every spell we cast was followed by "do you want to pay 1" and we couldn't always pay. They drew a fair number of cards over the course of the game since we have very little enchantment hate across our 3 decks since no one runs White. The Green decks have a few Enchantment removal spells, but not not many are being run.
The game started off as it always does for me. I got Sygg down turn 2. I ended up casting Windfall on turn 3 or 4 since the rest of my hand wasn't very good. I then got a Mindblade Render down which drew me a couple cards. Jarad cast a Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet which also let me draw cards (when he wasn't swinging at me). So I was able to draw cards off Kalitas a couple times too.
Some time later Jarad had really ramped up their board. They had an active Beastmaster Ascension, a Hangarback Walker with 5 counters a few other things. In one turn, they attacked me for 17 and Ruric Thar for 12. Luckily, I had Venser's Journal again this game so I was gaining life to offset these hits. Daxos also had Jin Gitaxias again so Daxos and Jarad had to discard their hand.
On Ruric Thar's turn, they tried to alpha strike everyone with Triumph of the Hordes but luckily I had a counter spell to counter it. They still had a huge board state since they had just resolved an Entwined Tooth and Nail and gotten a Craterhoof Behemoth and an Eternal Witness. They ended up attacking everyone with every creature being +7/+7 and they all had Double Strike. Luckily Daxos had an Evacuation so we all survived.
At some point, Daxos cast Approach of the Second Sun when they had Jin Gitaxias out. Which meant they drew it at their end step. Luckily, I had a Windfall to make them discard it. They ended up casting Memory to shuffle it back in which meant that for the rest of the game we had to keep hoping they didn't draw it again. In the meantime, they continued working to clear the board with things like Fumigate.
At some point, Ruric Thar cast their general with 3 life left. I had Undermine in hand so I could have killed them. I chose to forgo that at the time in case I needed to counter Approach on Daxos's turn. I ended up just attacking Ruric Thar by clearing their board and attacking them for 3.
With the threat of Approach just ending the game and Daxos continually trying to dig for it, Daxos become the target. Jarad attacked them and did what they could. Towards the end of the game, Daxos was at 5 life. I swung into them for 3 damage in order to get them down to 2 life. At my end step, Jarad sacrificed Brawn to have everyone lose 3 life. From there, it was just me against Jarad and I don't think that deck can beat mine one on one (at least, not this late in the game). I bounced all their stuff with Cyclonic Rift and attacked them and then just handled each thing they brought down so I could ensure that I could continue getting in. Rift happened immediately after they cast Avenger of Zendikar so I slowed them down a little there.
For a while, I was just attacking into Jarad with a few of my larger creatures such as Kefnet. I then had Bontu the Reckoner and was able to sac some smaller things to let me attack with it. I also got Dream Eater down which gave me another attacker while bouncing a blocker. Jarad did what they could to try to keep my board clear but I had too many answers in hand and too many things on the field. I dropped in a Kokusho, the Evening Star on the field and I sacrificed Kokusho to have Jarad lose 5 life and so I could attack with Bontu and my other creatures.
The final play was when I had Sygg, Bontu, Spellseeker, and Kefnet on the board. I attacked into Jarad so they got down to 4 life. I sacrificed Sygg, Spellseeker, and Kefnet to bring them down to 1. I then cast Crush of Tentacles for its Surge cost (I had cast Snuff Out earlier to clear out a blocker). This bounced Bontu but got me a token. I recast Bontu and sacrificed the token to have them lose their final life.
The final game resulted in Daxos unfortunately not doing as much as I think they wanted to do and they ended up in a number of situations where they did not have any counterspells so their interaction was limited.
The bulk of the beginning of this game was mostly me with Sygg and Dimir Cutpurse attacking Daxos and Ruric Thar. I attacked Ruric Thar since their general causes me problems and I attacked Daxos because they were drawing cards off Rhystic Study so I wanted to keep them in check. Since I didn't get to my Reliquary Tower or Venser's Journal and because I was drawing 3 cards a turn I was either discarding or I was simply choosing not to use Sygg's draw ability. This kept my hand full and helped me hit my land drops (I still missed one or two I think).
At one point, Ruric Thar cast a Skyshroud Claim. Daxos responded with Aven Mindcensor. In response I activated Field of Ruin to destroy a land of Ruric Thar's. If it was Ghost Quarter or something, I would have waited for the Aven to resolve but I wanted to search for a land off of it. The Mindcensor caused Ruric Thar to only find 1 land. Overall, the Mindcensor did very little that game that we saw, but it likely slowed down Ruric Thar mostly and caused Jarad to play around it in ways we didn't see. Boundless Realms is often a problem card for us so it helps slow down the ramp player.
Shortly after this, I cast Mystic Confluence to reset Jarad's board by bouncing their three creatures. I needed to do this since they had counters on their creatures and had a lot of power on board so this kept them in check. I attacked them, cast Twilight Prophet, and passed the turn.
Eventually, Jarad and Ruric Thar started really getting out of control owing mostly to a Sylvan Offering from Ruric Thar. I cleared the board with a timely Evacuation. Unfortunately for Daxos, they had been getting hit pretty hard with being attacked and Jarad's activations so they were at 3 life. Ruric Thar wasn't fairing much better as they were at 7. Daxos started their turn and they cast Solemn and Kefnet. After casting Kefnet, they had 2 mana open. I decided to try to kill them by casting Undermine on Kefnet. I decided to do it after Solemn so they would have less mana available. In response, they cast Swords to Plowshares on Solemn staying alive at 2 life.
On my turn, I drew into, and cast, Exsanguinate for X=7 to kill both Ruric Thar and Daxos. This left me with 1 mana untapped since the game was fairly short and I hadn't done much for ramping. From here, it was just Jarad and I going back and forth and, much like the first game, they had a hard time against me. I believe I ended up killing them with sacrificing Kokusho (to Bontu I think) and then attacking for the final 3 damage I needed.
The deck felt much better this week but I am not entirely sure it was just the strength of the deck or lines being taken. I think a larger part of the deck's success was because of the lower pressure being put on by the Black/Green deck. Jarad had just changed their general from Skullbriar to Jarad this week and Skullbriar is much faster in terms of killing someone but much worse in actually winning overall. So, their decision to move to a slower general does help my deck out. I do think the deck has its own strengths, but it had a ridiculously difficult time against Skullbriar so the success this week can at least somewhat be attributed to their decision to change generals.
Beyond that, the deck felt very "put together". That is, there were a lot of things that happened that just felt like they happened because I worked to make the cards synergize or follow a set focus. Mystical Teachings to get an answer and then flashing it back later to save me. Or casting Stunt Double to get a flash blocker or utility creature to answer something or provide a threat. Or the counter suite to help protect me or, in situations that always seem like Daxos is on the receiving end, ensure someone else loses.
That one had a few issues with it and the issues were mostly related to the fact that two of the decks required certain card types (Artifacts and Enchantments) while the other 2 were a bit more free in their deckbuilding. This also led to MLD being included in those decks because it was one of the axes they could truly combat the ease of Artifact and Enchantment hate. Due to the way that hurt the deck I was playing, I made significant changes to my deck to blow up the lands first and at times when it would hurt me the least. This led to nights where almost every game, all the lands were getting blown up which really isn't fun for anyone.
So, these issues led us to start a new league that a) provide more freedom in the deckbuilding process and b) discouraged certain strategies. We also wanted to stick with some sort of theme, so it wasn't just "bring whatever deck you want". The league is still the same 4 people from the last one. Some people have expressed interest in joining but we would want to get at least 2 more people to join (we won't do 5 people) so maybe the next league will have more participants.
In the end, we decided on 2 color decks as our theme. To promote color balance, we all chose what we wanted our main color to be. If there was conflict, we would roll a die to determine who had to choose another color. Luckily, we all chose a different main color (White was left out). I chose Blue. Then, we were all randomly assigned 2 supporting colors and we got to choose which one we wanted. This, again, was to create variety and force people to play something different rather than exactly what they might have chosen on their own. The main issue with it was color imbalance and overlaps in color combination choices. We did not want people to have the same 2 color combo and we also didn't want any one color to show up in more than 2 decks.
Here is where everyone started with their 2 options:
Black: Dimir or Golgari
Blue: Dimir or Izzet
Green: Gruul or Golgari
Red: Izzet or Rakdos
Black chose Dimir and Blue chose Dimir. Green chose Gruul and Red chose Rakdos. Blue and Black rolled to see who got what and Blue ended up with Golgari and Blue with Dimir. This then led to 3 black decks. Us three then rolled a die and the lowest had to choose something different. Unfortunately for Rakdos, they lost the die roll. So, they chose 2 new cards from the pile (in addition to the Red they started with) and then could make any color deck they wanted from those 3. They ended up choosing White, Red, and Blue. In the end, they decided to go with White/Blue as their deck.
I am not sure how to better determine color choices. In the next league, we might come up with something different that allows for less overlap in the choices. We just want to avoid the same color showing up in all decks, but we ended up seeing 3 players have a color combination that another player had and, initially, no one had white.
So, I ended up with Dimir and I started off building an Etrata, the Silencer. However, I found that for her to really work, there was a lot of support needed as she would eventually cost too much to do anything after killing one player (if she even got to that point) and, since her trigger is no optional, she would not likely stick around long enough to ever kill with Commander Damage.
I changed it up and went with The Scarab God. This gave me some graveyard interaction that I like, and it lets me steal things from other players as needed. I don’t like that he exiles stuff, so I will likely just try to steal things from other players.
So, to start, here is my initial deck list (I don’t know if we are starting this league this week or not, so this may change prior to the actual start as I goldfish a little):
1 Sygg, River Cutthroat
Lands
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Choked Estuary
1 Fetid Pools
1 Field of Ruin
1 Ghost Quarter
16 Island
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Sunken Hollow
10 Swamp
1 Tainted Isle
1 Temple of Deceit
1 Terrain Generator
1 Underground River
1 Watery Grave
Creatures
1 Archaeomancer
1 Bontu the Glorified
1 Burnished Hart
1 Dimir Cutpurse
1 Dream Eater
1 Kederekt Leviathan
1 Kefnet the Mindful
1 Kokusho, the Evening Star
1 Loyal Subordinate
1 Mindblade Render
1 Notion Thief
1 Noxious Gearhulk
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
1 Shadowmage Infiltrator
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Stunt Double
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Twilight Prophet
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Venser's Journal
Instants
1 Arcane Denial
1 Capsize
1 Chemister's Insight
1 Commit
1 Counterspell
1 Countersquall
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Disallow
1 Engulf the Shore
1 Evacuation
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Forbid
1 Glimmer of Genius
1 Go for the Throat
1 Hero's Downfall
1 Insidious Will
1 Malicious Affliction
1 Mission Briefing
1 Murderous Cut
1 Mystic Confluence
1 Mystical Teachings
1 Overwhelming Denial
1 Pongify
1 Rapid Hybridization
1 Silumgar's Command
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Snuff Out
1 Swan Song
1 Time Stop
1 Undermine
1 Wipe Away
1 Crush of Tentacles
1 Crux of Fate
1 Day's Undoing
1 Deadly Tempest
1 Decree of Pain
1 Devastation Tide
1 Exsanguinate
1 Time Reversal
1 Windfall
I started off with a zombie subtheme because of his ability but moved away from it. I kept a couple cards for it, but there is not a strong zombie theme here as a) I wanted the deck to be able to function without the general so more utility was needed and b) the general provides a way to get zombies anyway. The two main cards I kept for this were Grave Titan and Army of the Damned. Grave Titan took up a relatively large portion of my budget, but I think he is worth it. Army of the Damned is cheap (money wise) and gives me a win con. Even without being able to attack, that many zombies just works very well with The Scarab God.
The rest of the deck is meant to be utility and answers as well as trying to fit in card draw. There are a fair number of counters here as I want to be able to handle a lot of different situations and counters are one of the better ways to do that. I wouldn’t mind more but it is hard to fit too many. Windfall and Whispering Madness help refill my hand while also filling graveyards. Time Reversal, Game Plan, Memory (off Commit//Memory), and Day’s Undoing refill my hand while also getting my graveyard back into my library as needed.
I have several creatures that have ETB effects (mostly to kill other creatures) as I want to be able to get value out of them when bringing them back with the God if necessary. I have 1 or 2 spot removal cards and then a few wraths or mass bounce. My wraths are not the greatest due to budget constraints, but I think they are serviceable for now.
Ramp is light, but I will see how much more I may need. I am not sure what else I might want to add. Note that there are a few cards that didn’t make the cut due to budget constraints so there are some less desirable cards. I have a list of other cards to add later.
I will post our rules and prize structure in the post below as this one is getting quite long.
Also, since this is predicated on sticking to a budget, here is the cost of everything to start with (basic lands do not count against the budget):
Bojuka Bog 1.69
Cabal Stronghold 0.89
Choked Estuary 0.99
Dimir Guildgate 0.08
High Market 1.96
Island 0
Sunken Hollow 2.29
Swamp 0
Tainted Isle 2.36
Temple of Deceit 2.49
Agent of Erebos 0.2
Archaeomancer 0.14
Archfiend of Depravity 0.85
Bontu the Glorified 1.7
Burnished Hart 0.99
Chainer Dementia Master 2.79
Demon of Dark Schemes 0.49
Dimir Cutpurse 0.5
Duplicant 0.99
Fleshbag Marauder 0.23
Grave Titan 12.32
Gray Merchant of Asphodel 0.25
Havengul Lich 1.32
Kagemaro First to Suffer 1.57
Kefnet the Mindful 0.49
Kokusho the Evening Star 4.55
Krav the Unredeemed 0.76
Merciless Executioner 0.25
Notion Thief 0.49
Noxious Gearhulk 2.49
Phyrexian Plaguelord 0.14
Plaguecrafter 0.81
Ravenous Chupacabra 1.03
Shadowborn Demon 0.57
Sire of Stagnation 0.75
Solemn Simulacrum 4.42
Teferi Mage of Zhalfir 2.37
Thief of Blood 0.35
Toothy Imaginary Friend 1.19
Arcane Denial 0.36
Army of the Damned 0.79
Blue Sun's Zenith 0.87
Commit // Memory 0.49
Counterspell 0.75
Countersquall 2.49
Crux of Fate 0.49
Day's Undoing 2.55
Devastation Tide 0.28
Dig Through Time 1.34
Dimir Signet 0.99
Disallow 2.84
Evacuation 1.66
Exsanguinate 3.6
Fact or Fiction 0.49
Game Plan 0.16
Hero's Downfall 2.66
Mission Briefing 3.38
Mutilate 0.47
Overwhelming Intellect 0.25
Phyrexian Reclamation 2.96
Silumgar's Command 0.17
Sol Ring 2.71
Talisman of Dominance 1.16
Time Reversal 1.49
Undermine 1.31
Whip of Erebos 2.33
Whispering Madness 0.33
Windfall 0.63
Wipe Away 1.29
Total new cards price 99.04
Commanders do not count against the budget.
Every week, players get an additional $25 to their budget to add cards.
Any unused budget carries over (including anything not used in the initial $100).
Players get 2 points for winning the game.
Players get 1 point for killing another player.
Players lose .5 points for every basic land they actively destroy
The reason for not having the Commander not count against the budget was that we wanted people to be able to choose their preferred commander without worrying about it taking up a huge chunk of the budget. The rest of the cards in the deck can be moved out and swapped in but the general is hard to change mid-season.
We decided to increase the weekly budget to $25 from $20 as we feel that the extra $5 is not game breaking but allows for a few more $5-$10 cards every so often without getting stuck waiting weeks to add them with no other changes. This may prove to be too high, but we will see.
The loss of points is solely meant to discourage MLD. It does hurt Strip Mine/Crucible type interactions but not so much as Basics are likely to be the targets in those cases anyway. And, it does not cause something like Annihilator or Wildfire to make the person lose points. One thing it does count for is something like Keldon Firebombers since it causes lands to go down to a certain number so basics are inevitably going to be part of that. We were also going to add in Infect kills and Infinite Combos but we felt they were dealt with easily and didn't pose as much of a problem in our group so we left them off for now. We may find we want to add something else in at some point.
We didn’t really discuss things like Sunder or Death Cloud but the intent is clear so I am not sure how much people are going to try to game this part of the system. We didn’t want to go overboard with this and we wanted nonbasics to be fair game (though I don’t see Ruination making an appearance).
Prizes
2nd place – 3 packs
3rd and 4th place – 2 packs
Winner of a separate point system – the current Buy-a-Box promo
We changed up the prize structure to make it less top-heavy and to ensure everyone always gets something each season. Each season is a month. So, our idea was to buy a box at the beginning of each set release and use that for prizes for 3 months. This also gives us a BaB promo to use as an additional prize. Each month, there are 12 packs on the line.
BaB Points
Cast your general 4 or more times in a game – 1 point
Kill a player with Commander Damage – 1 point
These points are added up over the course of the entire 3 months and the person with the most points gets the BaB promo. We tried to make them easy to achieve with nearly any build (to discourage players for building specifically to the point system) and we only have a couple to make it easier for bookkeeping.
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave
Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper
Thromok the Insatiable
The first game, Skullbriar just trounced us. He got an early Skullbriar and then cast an Increasing Savagery on it. Noyan Dar exiled it but only after they attacked so they counters remained. A turn or two later, they got Skullbriar again followed by Savagery with Flashback. Again, Noyan Dar allowed it to resolve and then tried to Swords it when it swung at them. I was already having a pretty bad time in the game and when Noyan Dar, for the second time, allowed Skullbriar to get their counters before exiling it, I just countered their Swords so Skullbriar could kill them. Since Skullbriar keeps his counters, I was more upset that Noyan Dar kept allowing him to get counters before trying to deal with him.
This was an obvious mistake on my part as I clearly should have countered the Skullbriar or let it be exiled so I could counter it the next time, but I just wanted the game to be over.
Predictably, Skullbriar came after me next and killed me. They ended up killing Thromok 4 or 5 turns later. All in all, the game lasted about 25 minutes.
The second game was a bit better. I did some more early on and eventually got a Notion Thief into Whispering Madness. Noyan Dar bounced my Notion Thief but I just replayed it. I drew 28 cards and luckily found my Reliquary tower. Unfortunately, it did take a lot of resources to pull this off since I had to spend an additional 4 mana to cast the Thief that I only had 4 mana available. I decided to attack Skullbriar which got them down to 1. Then, they cast a spell which I countered with Undermine to kill them. Noyan Dar just attacked me next since I had very little life left.
The third game was actually going pretty well. A lot of back and forth was happening and a lot of interaction. Bounce and kill spells were flying and players were trying to build up board states to kill people. Unfortunately, I had a misplay in that I allowed Thromok to keep their Zendikar Resurgent on the field instead of bouncing it (I don't remember if I had a Wheel/Twister effect in hand or not). This meant they had a ton of mana that they just funneled into a Molten Disaster. Since it had Split Second, we could do nothing about it and we all died right there. A bit of an anticlimactic end.
Overall, I am still not impressed with the deck. It feels like it can't quite do anything very well and is split between a creature based deck and a spell based deck. Both try to control the game, but the creatures are not working out as well as I want. I was going to add in the 4 things I could find to deal with Split Second, but I decided against them for now. I am going to try to simply control the game more (and not let Thromok get a bunch of mana) and then try to amass an army of Zombies with Army of the Damned, Empty the Pits, and Rise from the Tides. Empty the Pits is interesting in that it takes a bunch of mana to be good (or a large graveyard) but it is an Instant which can be very relevant to just close out a game.
Beyond that, I am doubling down on the spell based control while cutting some of the creatures. I am adding in a couple smaller creatures too. I am also considering changing my general to be Sygg, River Cutthroat over The Scarab God since he comes down sooner and can potentially draw me cards every turn (depending on who my opponents attack). If nothing else, he makes for a good blocker for Skullbriar.
I am still tweaking the card choices a little, but I think I am going to end up with about 15 cards that I am swapping out. My next post will detail some of those changes a little more in depth.
ADDS
Capsize $1.49
Empty the Pits $0.34
Engulf the Shore $0.23
Fetid Pools $2.49
Mindblade Render $0.21
Murderous Cut $0.09
Nihil Spellbomb $0.23
Overwhelming Denial $0.15
Rewind $0.20
Rise from the Tides $0.16
Shadowmage Infiltrator $0.14
Slaughter Pact $2.77
Spellseeker $4.35
Swan Song $2.92
Terrain Generator $1.99
Underground River $2.99
Time Stop $2.99
CUTS
Archfiend of Depravity
Agent of Erebos
Blue Sun's Zenith
Chainer, Dementia Master
Demon of Dark Schemes
Fleshbag Marauder
Gray Merchant of Asphodel
Kagemaro, First to Suffer
Merciless Executioner
Phyrexian Plaguelord
Shadowborn Demon
Sire of Stagnation
Toothy, Imaginary Friend
Whip of Erebos
3 Swamp
Notably, I added 2 dual lands to make my colors a little more consistent and Terrain Generator to try to ramp. I also cut quite a few creatures that were either for reanimation (Chainer and the Demon) or board control (Fleshbag and Executioner). I left Plaguecrafter for now since it is the better of the 3 and I want to see if it ever becomes relevant. I am thinking that with my bounce and wraths, I don't need it. I will likely cut it later for an actual wrath though I don't know what that would be.
I added in 2 win conditions in Empty the Pits and Rise from the Tides. I am not sure how good the latter is but I can see the former leading to surprise wins due to being an instant. I also added in 3 counter spells and Time Stop to help protect me and stop others from doing things. Engulf the Shore also helps stop others from doing too much. Murderous Cut and Slaughter Pact were added to give me cheap, Instant ways to deal with creatures. Slaughter Pact doesn't hit Skullbriar which is the biggest issue with it.
Spellseeker gets me my counters when I need them and will tutor for my Rift which is likely to be included in the next round of changes. I may end up including Merchant Scroll and/or Mystical Tutor as well to ensure I always have access to my bounce and counter spells when I need them. Shadowmage Infiltrator gives me a cheap creature to block Skullbriar as well as a way to draw cards. Mindblade Render is exactly the same reasoning for including it but it is 1 mana less.
Capsize is just an all purpose answer and Nihil Spellbomb is a way to stop Noyan Dar's Rise from the Tides as well as any other graveyard shenanigans people may try.
I am also pretty sure I am going to swap out The Scarab God for Sygg, River Cutthroat. I will update the list in the first post before we play again to reflect these changes. As mentioned, I may make other smaller changes so I want to wait until then before updating the list.
Game 1
This game started off well for Skullbriar in that they got Skullbriar and Drana, Liberator of Malakir early and just kept beating down. However, they got stuck on 3 lands for a long time. Xenagos had the same problem in that they got stuck on 3 lands too but Xenagos was doing very little.
I ended up getting Sygg and Dimir Cutpurse which allowed me to keep cards in my hand and make Skullbriar discard cards. I also got an early Notion Thief. I ended up discarding my Whispering Madness (without another Wheel/Twister effect). I figured the rest of the cards in my hand were better at the time and that I would eventually draw into another twister effect.
Medomai was cast and they equipped up with Fireshrieker. Before they went to their first extra turn, they cast Deep Analysis. Which meant that I drew 2 cards instead of them. They then tried to Wrath which I countered with Forbid and I bought it back. I ended up just blocking Skullbriar with Notion Thief to save me some life.
A turn or two later, Medomai tried to come at me to get 2 more extra turns. I ended up casting Slaughter Pact to destroy it, they cast Desertion, I cast Undermine, they cast Arcane Denial, I cast Swan Song. In the end, my spell got through, I got rid of 2 of their counters, and they ended up with a Bird. I am glad I came out of top of that battle. Skullbriar was able to keep dealing damage though, luckily, I had blockers so they went after Medomai.
A turn or two later, Medomai got back a Wrath of God with Call to Mind which they held onto. I ended up dropping in a Ravenous Chupacabra to deal with Drana and give me a blocker for Skullbriar which I blocked the turn after Medomai got Wrath of God back. I also used Silumgar's Command to bounce Skullbriar and kill some other creature (I forget which).
I then dropped in a Grave Titan to try to get the Wrath to come out (I wanted Xenagos's board gone). Medomai cast Wrath. Skullbriar couldn't recast their general since they were still at 5 lands. They did get a Yavimaya Elder though which got them some lands.
I dropped in a Mindblade Render to draw a couple cards. This is when I was at 19 life. Xenagos didn't do much. Medomai cast their general again. Skullbriar cast Merciless Executioner to get rid of Medomai and my Sygg that I had cast. I then cast Spellseeker on my turn and got a Mission Briefing. I then attacked with the Render to draw a card and passed the turn.
It got around to Medomai a little later and they attacked Skullbriar to get 2 extra turns. Xenagos had a Domri Rade out at 6 counters so they attacked Domri with Burnished Hart during both extra turns. They then passed to Skullbriar who attacked Medomai since they looked open. Medomai cycled Decree of Justice to get blockers. They then passed to me. I attacked Domri with a Bird I had from one of my spells getting hit by Swan Song. I then dropped Thief of Blood to get rid of all the counters (11) on Skullbriar. I know the Thief got rid of the counters on Domri, but I liked the idea that we worked together with creatures to get rid of it.
I passed the turn and Xenagos cast a couple things. Medomai tried to come after me to take a couple extra turns but they forgot that I had the Thief of Blood. They tried to bounce it when they realized and I countered it. I blocked Medomai and killed it. They then cast Call to Mind to get back Decree of Justice and they just hard cast it so they had some Angels for blocking and then passed the turn.
Skullbriar cast Verdant Force and passed the turn. I attacked Xenagos for 14 while they were at 13. They tried to Crop Rotation into a land that gained them 2 life but they didn't have one (I think there are only "white" lands that let their controller gain 2 or more life). I then cast Crux of Fate to get rid of everything Medomai and Skullbriar had and then I cast a Notion Thief followed by Whispering Madness. I drew 8 cards. Ciphered Madness onto it, played a land, and passed the turn.
Medomai drew nothing so they just recast their general. Skullbriar did the same thing and passed the turn. I cast Sygg for the 3rd time and attacked with Notion Thief. I also cast Kokusho, the Evening Star to give me a blocker for Medomai. I passed to Medomai who didn't do anything. Skullbriar then cast Skullbriar and Oona's Blackguard which was important since it has flying. They passed to me so I just attacked them with Kokusho and Sygg. They blocked with Skullbriar and the Blackguard.
Medomai drew Cast Out and tried to get my Notion Thief but I countered it with Swan Song. They tried to attack me so I just cast Engulf the Shore. They dropped in Medomai again and passed the turn. Skullbriar killed my Notion Thief that I had flashed back in and passed the turn.
I cast Sygg, Kokusho and Bontu, the Glorified and passed the turn. Medomai cast Commit // Memory from their graveyard which worked out since my hand was pretty bad. Skullbriar dropped in a Noxious Gearhulk and bulked it up with Increasing Savagery. They swung 15 at me so I blocked with Sygg and Kokusho and sacrificed Sygg to Bontu. On my turn, I cast Archaeomancer to get back Crux of Fate. I sacrificed Archaeomancer to Bontu and then destroyed all non-Dragon creatures. I then attacked Medomai with Bontu and got them down to 1.
Medomai drew nothing and passed. Skullbriar didn't do much either. I drew for turn which was a Havengul Lich. I used this to reanimate Kokusho and then sac it to Bontu to kill both remaining players for the win.
Game 2
This game was a little worse but not by much. I won't go into as much detail as above since I don't want to type that much. I was still able to interact and I kept control of the board as best as possible. However, since Xenagos and Skullbriar actually got lands we had to deal with their board states a lot. Specifically, Xenagos kept dropping in big creatures and I kept bouncing everything. Unfortunately, I only had a Twister effect once so most of the time they just kept dropping their hand onto the board. Medomai was basically useless this entire game as they had pretty much no counters, no wraths, and no twister effects which meant I was on my own to deal with the other two players. It was an uphill battle the entire way and a Whispering Madness with 10 cards in hand and a few other things allowed me to dig for answers (as well as giving things to Medomai) but it wasn't enough.
One key point in the game, Xenagos cast Insult copied and then cast Overwhelming Stampede and Overrun. This was when they had a bunch of tokens on the field. Before the Stampede resolved, I cast Engulf the Shore to bounce everything so we didn't all die. They still attacked me with an Anger that they recast so I just blocked it so I wouldn't take 8.
I had Empty the Pits in hand for a while in this game, but I never got a good opportunity to cast it. I only had 4 black sources, but my graveyard was pretty full. The way the game was going just never allowed me to cast it for any real value.
Towards the tail end of the game, I was still fighting, but I ended up drawing too many lands in a row and I just ran out of gas. I ended up "scooping" (we don't allow scooping so Skullbriar still had to attack me) and I got out of the game.
Game 3
In this game, Skullbriar ended up leaving so we agreed to alter our decks if people had the cards with them since this wouldn't count as a League game. Because it wasn't a League game, Medomai switched decks over to Kolaghan, the Storm’s Fury and Xenagos just changed their general to Ruric Thar, the Unbowed. I added in Cyclonic Rift. I was going to add in Drowned Catacomb but because of the other games, I need to find room for Damnation so I am going to try to save up for it.
The game started off decent. I got Sygg down early as usual and then cast a Solemn Simulacrum a little later. I was stuck on 3 lands and a Talisman for a while but I got another couple lands. The important part is that I had no actual Islands until Solemn. After that, I dropped down Spellseeker to get Rift from my Library. I only had Engulf the Shore in hand up until this point. I ended up casting that to bounce my Spellseeker, a Tilonalli's Summoner and some tokens, and a Falkenrath Aristocrat. For only having the one Island, it still got a lot taken care of.
Next turn, I didn't do much as I wanted to keep Rift open to deal with anything that might happen. I eventually dropped Rift and then, a couple turns later since I was trying to do some building of my own, I recast Spellseeker to get Mission Briefing. This was basically to allow me to Cyclonic Rift again if I needed to. What ended up happening was that Xenagos dropped in a Wolfbriar Elemental and kicked it 14 times. Then, they cast Burn at the Stake to try to kill me. I had no counter spells in the graveyard and none in hand. I have 4 mana open and only had a Mission Briefing in hand. I decided to spin the wheel and saw a Swamp and a Swan Song on top. I binned both and cast Swan Song to counter the Burn at the Stake. This was extremely timely as all the tokens went away next turn (don't remember if it was me or Kolaghan). From here, neither of the other players were able to do much and I beat down with a Kokusho for a couple turns and then cast a Mutilate to kill everything which killed Kokusho which killed the Ruric Thar player.
Now, it was me and Kolaghan and Kolaghan had a Wheel of Fate coming off Suspend. I let it resolve and drew 7 new cards. One was Capsize. They got a couple Equipment and Godo, Bandit Warlord. They played Godo and got Grafted Exoskeleton. They passed the turn. I got to my turn and drew a Silumgar's Command. I passed back. They played a Crypt Ghast and then tried to equip up Kolaghan and Godo and swing. I bounced Grafted Exoskeleton to kill Godo; I bounced Kolaghan and killed Crypt Ghast with Silumgar's Command.
Next turn, they cast Kolaghan and equipped it up with everything and I just bounced Grafted Exoskeleton again. Since they had very little in hand, and I had a couple creatures, they just scooped at this point.
Overall, the games we played went very well, even though I lost the second game. The deck is performing much better and I think I have a clear direction I want to go with the deck. I have about 7 or 8 cuts I want to make that I will try to get done tonight. I know I need more sweepers. I think I want more spot removal. Two of the cards I am looking at cutting are creature based Spot removal (Duplicant and Noxious Gearhulk) and that is mostly because they are 6 mana.
Sweepers I am looking at are Decree of Pain mostly for the Cycling (Xenagos and Skullbriar do a lot with tokens with Avenger of Zendikar and a few other things) and this is an Instant timing way of dealing with them. I think I have the best bounce spells, but I might add in a couple of the others like Coastal Breach or Crush of Tentacles. I would rather they be Instants but I think I already have the Instant mass bounce spells.
All in all, the deck is certainly coming together. I am going to go through and determine what else I want to cut and will post that in the next post.
Cuts Summary
Duplicant, Gearhulk, and Plaguecrafter are cards that seem alright, but just don't do a lot when I need them to. I am trying to be more of a spellslinger deck so Sorcery timing creatures, especially 6 drops, are not what I want.
Krav is not doing as much as I want him to. I don't often get enough creatures to sacrifice to him so it is a dead card in hand when I am staring down an army from my opponents. Empty the Pits falls into this category due to the high cost. I like it since it is an Instant, but to make it useful, I need to exile a lot from my graveyard (I will almost never have enough lands to get any more than 6 Zombies off it). Rise from the Tides is similar in that it is too much to make it worthwhile since there are a lot of twister effects and I can get blown out by grave hate.
Mutilate is not a very good wrath but it was a cheaper option. I need to find a different cheaper option that is not quite as conditional. Overwhelming Intellect is 6 mana and I like it, but I would rather be able to keep up multiple counters, or just wrath the board, rather than spending all my mana on countering one creature.
Because I am potentially going down below 20 creatures, Reclamation is less useful. It gets back great stuff, but it seems like it is more and more likely to be a dead card. It depends on if any additions are creatures as well, but I think I need at least 22 creatures minimum to make this worthwhile since I have 21 now and I had it one game above where it did something, but not a lot.
Nihil Spellbomb is just not needed. I added it as a last minute addition due to budget concerns and because the other card was just worse. But, with the amount of twister effects and other player's gravehate, it really isn't necessary. Plus, not many people use their graveyards as it is now.
Grave Titan is on the fence due to his high cost and the fact that it is difficult to swing into anybody with all their creatures. The mass bounce spells help keep things clear for him, but that takes a lot mana to bounce everything and cast him. I still need ways to end the game though and this is one of those ways. If I can find anything that works better in the deck, I may go with that, but for now this will need to do.
Adds Summary
Rift, Deadly Tempest, and Decree of Pain are my additional sweepers. Rift is just awesome and needs to be in the deck. Decree draws me cards and lets me cycle to get rid of small tokens at Instant timing. Tempest is one that gets rid of my opponents' boards as well but can also be a win condition if they did get a large amount of tokens.
Black Sun's Zenith is interesting in that it stops Skullbriar from ever being cast again but it is kind of slow so I am not sure how much it will actually do. I am willing to give it a try though since it is still a sweeper and my spot removal can get rid of the rest.
Speaking of spot removal, I am adding 4 cards: Malicious Affliction and Snuff out only hit nonblack creatures but getting an extra copy or casting for free are worth the restriction. Rapid Hybridization and Pongify are just really cheap. The creatures they leave behind might be an issue but likely less of an issue than the creature I am destroying.
Mulldrifter just draws me cards and gets me a flyer that can block or be a beater as needed. And finally, Insidious Will just gives me yet another counterspell to hopefully force through things I need or answer my opponents as needed while being cheaper and less conditional than Overwhelming Intellect.
So, here are my changes for this time around:
ADDS
Black Sun's Zenith 3.86
Cyclonic Rift 13.63
Deadly Tempest 2.29
Decree of Pain 2.52
Insidious Will 0.35
Malicious Affliction 0.72
Mulldrifter 0.74
Pongify 2.94
Rapid Hybridization 0.87
Snuff Out 1.79
CUTS
Duplicant
Empty the Pits
Krav, the Unredeemed
Mutilate
Nihil Spellbomb
Noxious Gearhulk
Overwhelming Intellect
Phyrexian Reclamation
Plaguecrafter
Rise from the Tides
I played a couple games with this deck last night. 2 were 1v1 with the Skullbriar player in our League and I won both. Since it is was 1v1, it isn't really worth going over what the deck did or didn't do. Both of our decks are built around multiplayer and we were just playing to kill time while waiting for Modern to start.
Later in the night, we did get a league game going. Skullbriar vs Ruric Thar vs Medomai vs Sygg. I will say, Ruric Thar is a beast against both my Sygg deck as well as the Medomai deck.
The game started off as most do: I got Sygg down early and Skullbriar got their general down early. I played a draw-go style so I didn't do much beyond play lands. At one point, Ruric Thar did cast Boundless Realms which I did not counter. I could have, but I only had the one and I wanted to save it. I am not sure if this was a mistake, but I let it go.
This allowed them to cast Ruric Thar a bunch of times (they got a Zendikar Resurgent later on as well). Skullbriar was leaving up Pernicious Deed mana, but never actually cracked it. Ruric Thar cost me 6 life and cost Medomai 6 or 12. At one point, I had a removal spell in hand but let Medomai take care of Ruric Thar so I could save my life. Luckily it worked out.
Sygg let me draw about 8-10 cards over the course of the game which kept me in it. I did draw 3 swamps in a row which was disappointing and then, a little later, I tutored for lands off Burnished Hart and saw 5 out of my top 6 cards were lands and the other was a Talisman. This was at a time when I had 20 lands on the field and 3 in hand so seeing that many right on top when I really needed to be drawing answers and threats was frustrating. I may cut a land at some point.
At one point in the game, I was down to 11 life. Ruric Thar was down to 3. I had Bontu and Sygg on the battlefield. Before my turn, I sacrificed Sygg to Bontu to gain life and make everyone lose life. I scried a land to the bottom. I started my turn and cast Mindlade Render and Sygg. This game me lethal on board to kill Ruric Thar if I needed to. Instead, Medomai attacked them to kill them and I let it happen since I wanted my creatures. It ended up not mattering as the board was wrathed so I sacrificed those two anyway to gain life and then Skullbriar cast Merciless Executioner to make me sac Bontu.
A couple turns later, I cast a Twister effect so Medomai cast White Sun's Zenith to get some cats in response. Skullbriar had rebuilt a little by this point too. I drew into a Devastation Tide so I cast that, cast Sygg, and cast Spellseeker to get Arcane Denial and passed the turn. Medomai passed and then Skullbriar tried to attack Medomai for 6 (they were at 8). They tried to Capsize and I countered it (mostly to get rid of Capsize). They couldn't do anything so they went to 2. On my turn, I swung for lethal into Medomai to kill them when I could.
Skullbriar tried to get in but I bounced his stuff. In the end, I ended up just being able to out value them 1v1 and won with Army of the Damned or Grave Titan or something (I don't remember exactly what I won with).
There were a number of times in the game where I could have been picked off or where I was in real danger of going too low. I wasn't the threat at the time luckily (Ruric Thar held that mantle for a long time) so there wasn't as much focus on me. Ruric Thar is a big problem though. My deck has very little life gain and a lot of spells. Just dealing with Ruric Thar is likely going to cost me games. I am not sure what the answer for that is since I cannot go under them or race them. I might just have to rely on Medomai and team up with them a little against a common enemy. I am not sure.
In any case, things are mostly working out as I want them to so, beyond trying to deal with Ruric Thar a little better, there isn't much more I am intending to change. As mentioned, I will likely cut a land and I already have Damnation slated for inclusion next week.
In the game I won, Ruric Thar ended up attacking Skullbriar and Medomai because they knew I had a Rift in hand. Medomai tried to save themselves but I countered it. They ended up losing that turn while Skullbriar just survived. The game got around to me and I killed Skulbriar and then, a couple turns later, I killed Ruric Thar.
2 other games were won by Ruric Thar (Medomai won another game in there). And Ruric Thar is becoming even more of a problem for my deck as well as Medomai. I have wraths and mass bounce to help, but taking 6 off Ruric Thar is a beating. In the final game, Medomai, who is also hurt by Ruric Thar, cast Desertion on him. This did basically nothing except kill both of us (though it was kind of our fault). Since Ruric Thar was out, we both had to hold off on spells. However, Medomai tried to exile my Kokusho so they could attack me and I tried to counter it. They countered back so I countered again. They had a final counter in hand so I just bounced everything. This meant that we each lost 18 life that turn. It put them to 3 and me to 11. I probably should have bounced everything before it got to their turn, but I was hoping they would attack someone else.
Our fight then led to Ruric Thar being able to untap and cast a Molten Disaster for X=11 and kicked. This killed all of us. They didn't have much more mana so if we didn't fight, Ruric Thar likely would not have won. Our decks are crippled with the presence of Ruric Thar to such a degree that I think we both need to put a higher focus on them.
As such, I have tweaked my deck considerably. I had not planned on making a lot of changes, but I think there are more things I need to do to combat Ruric Thar. One of the things I was going to do was add in Bone Shredder and Shriekmaw. I have decided against these for now for a couple reasons. One, I want to evolve into more of a draw-go deck. And two, these are basically only for Ruric Thar as I can deal with everything else pretty well. So, instead of going too high on the creature based destroy effects, I decided to go in a slightly different direction to help combat Ruric Thar: lifegain.
Now, lifegain on its own can be overvalued. But, with the right cards to keep me going, I think having some life gain would be helpful in the fight against Ruric Thar (and the other players). So, here are my changes:
ADDS
Chemister's Insight $0.45
Dream Eater $3.52
Exsanguinate $3.58
Mystical Teachings $0.11
Noxious Gearhulk (In Pool)
Stunt Double $2.48
Twilight Prophet $7.71
Venser Shaper Savant $4.73
Venser's Journal $4.49
Watery Grave $8.01
CUTS
Army of the Damned
Black Sun's Zenith
Dimir Guildgate
Game Plan
Grave Titan
Havengul Lich
Mulldrifter
Swamp
Thief of Blood
Whispering Madness
Army of the Damned and Grave Titan have basically never done much for me. They are high in cost, and are very susceptible to removal, so I am not sure I will miss them being gone. I might have to add Grave Titan back in at some point, but I am not sure. Havengul Lich is being removed since my creature count is fairly low and I almost never want to see the card when I do see it. Thief of Blood and Black Sun's Zenith were here for Skullbriar mostly, but there are other ways to deal with Skullbriar.
I decided to cut Dimir Guildgate (a budget choice) for the superior Watery Grave. This leaves me with 3 lands that always enter tapped (Bojuka Bog, Fetid Pools, Temple of Deceit) which I think is fine.
I decided Mulldrifter didn't work as well in this shell as I wanted so I cut it for a Chemister's Insight. It draws me 4 cards total (I will almost always have a land to discard) so it should hopefully keep me going. I also added in Twilight Prophet for card draw and some life gain. It also causes life loss for my opponents which works well with Sygg if I hit something with CMC 3 or greater. I decided to cut 2 Twister/Wheel effects mostly to make room and because I think I just had too many. I am hoping Insight and Prophet (along with Kefnet) can keep my hand full so I don't need to twister as often.
Venser, Dream Eater, Noxious Gearhulk, and Stunt Double are creature based ways to deal with Ruric Thar and they also have other uses as well. Being able to get a big Multani or being able to gain life off destroying something or being able to bounce an uncounterable spell to someone's hand can be the difference between winning and losing. Dream Eater also gets me through a potential land clump or makes sure my next draw is not a bust.
Exsanguinate and Venser's Journal are here for the life gain. Exsanguinate can hopefully close games out when I need it to and Journal gives me no max hand size while also gaining me life during each of my upkeeps. If I can gain at least 4 life each turn (which should not be hard) it goes a long way to offsetting the 6 damage I take from Ruric Thar.
And, finally, Mystical Teachings. This gets me a lot of cards in my deck when I need them. An Instant-Timing tutor for Venser, or Cyclonic Rift, or a Counterspell, or even just a Notion Thief (in anticipation of a twister) or Stunt Double (for a blocker) can make or break a game. This doesn't get me a few key cards, but a lot of my stuff is Instant or has Flash so this seems like a no-brainer.
We are going to play again this week (though I am not sure how the holiday affects this) so I will provide another update by the end of the week. Hopefully this gives me a few tools to deal with Ruric Thar and still gives me enough to win games.
In any case, I am still trying to tweak the deck to further deal with Skullbriar and Ruric Thar. Skullbriar is just way too fast and Ruric Thar deals me too much damage. Since Skullbriar was the one that killed me right away last time, I decided to put a bit more focus on my removal spells.
Now, I have a total of 10 "removal" (some are just bounce) that are 3 mana or less. This includes Murderous Cut which I can delve for and Snuff Out which I can cast with life. The main issue with my removal is is the the things that can't target Skullbriar. Snuff Out, Slaughter Pact, and Malicious Affliction do not hit Black Creatures, so they are not very useful against Skullbriar. So, I am relying on my other spot removal, mass destroy effects, and mass bounce. I have decided to add in Go For the Throat as another cheap removal spell to deal with it. I had thought about Fatal Push but that is somewhat narrow so I don't think it would be as good.
I am also adding in Mystic Confluence to give me more bounce as needed. Since it can counter things or draw me cards, it seems worthwhile to try out. Kederekt Leviathan made it in as another creature based way of dealing with Ruric Thar and being able to play it from my graveyard can be useful. And, lastly, I added Crush of Tentacles. This was added because it lets me bounce everything when I need to (players can really get out of control with tokens and other permanents) and it potentially gives me a creature to beat down with as well.
Fitting these into the deck was a bit tough but I came up with 4. I decided to go down to 38 lands since I am still flooding and I have enough draw/twister effects to get my land drops. My curve is also low enough (though the Leviathan changes that a bit) that I think this is fine. I cut High Market because it really only works with Kokusho.
The other 3 cuts are likely controversial. I decided to go remove my Artifact ramp. I am not even sure this is right, but 2 main things have led me to this decision: Sygg wants to be cast early so I don't want to cast Artifact Ramp early anyway (Sol Ring is fine as it comes down turn 1 but it doesn't help cast Sygg). And, I am generally finding myself wanting to either cast a 3 drop creature after Sygg or holding up mana for countermagic that I don't want to spend the mana on the ramp anyway. This means that normally these cards are being cast on turn 4 or later. Still not the worst, but they are less useful when I don't cast them early.
I have also been finding that it is disappointing to see these later in the game when I really need answers. Drawing 3 cards to get land, land, Sol Ring when I need pretty much anything else to not lose feels bad. So going down on the ramp (which makes the big plays take longer) gives me more action and more spells that can actually affect the board. I feel this is a worthy trade off. I may eventually add Sol Ring back in, but I don't think the other two are worth it.
So, in summary:
ADDS
Crush of Tentacles $0.75
Go for the Throat $1.51
Kederekt Leviathan $1.40
Mystic Confluence $2.36
CUTS
Dimir Signet
High Market
Sol Ring
Talisman of Dominance
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
A quick glance through the deck and I don't know exactly what to cut. It looks like I have about 14-15 counterspells (or, counterspell-esque) cards. Some are soft counters or, like Venser, just return spells to hand. So, I am going to try to cut a counterspell for now and the best once to cut is probably Rewind. It is nice that it is "free" but it doesn't really help much in a counter war or if it gets countered and 4 is the top end for "just" a counterspell.
I might put more thought into it later but we play our games for this week in 8 hours and I think this is a good enough suggestion to try to get it in right away. Luckily I already have a copy from my Lord Windgrace deck that I just need to find before the morning
In both games I won, the Daxos of Meletis player didn't have a lot of counterspells so they weren't doing much. I was able to keep control of the game and get a few creatures on the board. Mindblade Render gave me a few early cards and otherwise I just used spells to keep control of the board. Ruric Thar did land a couple times but never stuck around for long. Daxos did end up wrathing a couple times too which helped.
The games I won ended up with Ruric Thar taking out Daxos where they couldn't do anything so they just died. And then I won a few turns later. In the game I lost Ruric Thar was trying to take out Daxos again and Daxos tried to get out of it. We ended up in a bit of a counter war but they had way more mana than I did. They drew 3 cards off Kefnet and cast Mystical Tutor to get another counter spell to win the counter war (I cast 2 counter spells but didn't have enough mana to cast another). Daxos survived and then just killed me (which is part of the reason I was trying to get Ruric Thar to kill them). I knew I couldn't survive them as my life total was 4 so I was hoping this would kill them. It did not.
I did see Kederekt Leviathan which bounced everything and allowed me to get in for 5. I alsd saw Go for the Throat to kill Ruric Thar and Mystic Confluence to draw 3 cards. I am mostly happy with my new additions. I do hope the Subordinate pans out as it seems like it makes sense with my general plus it lets me attack to get players down on life early.
Mid-Tier: Marchesa Aggro Rose Asmadi Get Dire Tymna Ikra Woke Women Tiana Aura Angel Ruric Thar SMASH Smasher Kraum Mana Positivity Zur Slides
Filthy Casual: WUBRG Jodah WUBRG WUBRG Fatties WUBRG Gahiji Vigilant Vengeance Ezuri Mysterious Morphs
Duskmantle Seer is also saying "Come at me, bro" which always wins bonus points.
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
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Because the summaries of these games tend to go long, and I don't want to make 1 post for each one, I will just hide them via spoiler tags. The games are me, Daxos of Meletis, Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, and Ruric Thar, the Unbowed.
As usual, I got Sygg down on turn 2. Unfortunately, I started with 2 Islands and a Field of Ruin so I ended up just activating Field of Ruin to destroy a Skarrg, the Rage Pits so I could get a Swamp. Next turn I cast Dimir Cutpurse. I passed and Ruric Thar had cast an Anger. It got back to my turn and I cast Windfall since I had no lands. Daxos cast Path to Exile on Anger in response. I then hit Ruric Thar for 3 so I could draw another card and then I drew one at my end step.
A few turns passed without much happening. I cast a Fact or Fiction to try to get some cards. Ruric Thar cast a Spellbreaker Behemoth to help protect their creatures from being countered. The next turn they tried to cast Ruric Thar so I blew up the Behemoth and and countered Ruric Thar. They then moved to their end step and Daxos cast Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur. When it got to their end step, I cast Silumgar's Command to bounce it and give Ruric Thar's Legion Loyalist -3/-3. They recast Jin-Gitaxias to draw their cards but they tapped out to do so.
It got to my turn and I didn't really do anything. I drew a card and passed the turn. Since I had a Reliquary Tower on the field, Jin-Gitaxias didn't make me discard. Jarad then cast a Merciless Executioner to make me sac my Kefnet the Mindful and Daxos had to sac their Jin-Gitaxias.
Ruric Thar then cast their general which neither Daxos nor I countered. Daxos then dropped in a Resolute Archangel to go back up to 40 (from 23). When it got to my turn, I cast Decree of Pain to wrath the board. I ended up drawing 5 cards since Ruric Thar sacrificed one of their scions they had from Awakening Zone. Jarad ended up with 6 tokens from Hangarback Walker dying.
Jarad then cast Sorin Markov and I let it go. They targeted Daxos who then responded with Teferi's Protection. I countered it with Countersquall so they ended up going to 10 life. Jarad sacrificed a creature to put Daxos to 4 and then they attacked Daxos to kill them. At some point, I cast Venser's Journal to help keep my life total high. It never got blown up and gained me at least 20 life over the course of the game.
Ruric Thar came back down so I ended up killing it with Noxious Gearhulk. I then killed Sorin with Hero's Downfall. I passed the turn. Jarad cast Shape of the Wiitigo on one of their tokens. I let it resolve. Ruric Thar cast their general again so in response I blew up the token with the aura. On my turn, I drew a card and passed the turn. Jarad beefed up one of his tokens with Hunter’s Prowess. I cast Wipe Away that one. They cast Mikaeus the Unhallowed and passed the turn. Ruric Thar attacked me so I blocked with a Solemn Simulacrum I had and the Gearhulk. They assigned the damage order and I flashed in Stunt Double to copy Mikaeus. Gearhulk and Ruric Thar died. When Gearhulk came back from Undying, I blew up Jarad's Mikaeus.
On my turn I attacked Ruric Thar with Mikaeus and Gearhulk and I cast a Twilight Prophet and passed the turn. Jarad didn't do much and Ruric Thar tried to cast Urabrask, the Hidden. I countered it and they passed the turn. Jarad cast Falkenrath Noble and then attacked me. I blocked 1 and took one off the Nobel since the blocked creature died. Ruric Thar got to their turn and attacked me with Ruric Thar that they had cast the turn before. I cast Cyclonic Rift.
On my turn, I cast Exsanguinate for 12 which killed off Ruric Thar and Jarad which ended the game.
This game was mostly defined by Rhystic Study from Daxos. Every spell we cast was followed by "do you want to pay 1" and we couldn't always pay. They drew a fair number of cards over the course of the game since we have very little enchantment hate across our 3 decks since no one runs White. The Green decks have a few Enchantment removal spells, but not not many are being run.
The game started off as it always does for me. I got Sygg down turn 2. I ended up casting Windfall on turn 3 or 4 since the rest of my hand wasn't very good. I then got a Mindblade Render down which drew me a couple cards. Jarad cast a Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet which also let me draw cards (when he wasn't swinging at me). So I was able to draw cards off Kalitas a couple times too.
Some time later Jarad had really ramped up their board. They had an active Beastmaster Ascension, a Hangarback Walker with 5 counters a few other things. In one turn, they attacked me for 17 and Ruric Thar for 12. Luckily, I had Venser's Journal again this game so I was gaining life to offset these hits. Daxos also had Jin Gitaxias again so Daxos and Jarad had to discard their hand.
On Ruric Thar's turn, they tried to alpha strike everyone with Triumph of the Hordes but luckily I had a counter spell to counter it. They still had a huge board state since they had just resolved an Entwined Tooth and Nail and gotten a Craterhoof Behemoth and an Eternal Witness. They ended up attacking everyone with every creature being +7/+7 and they all had Double Strike. Luckily Daxos had an Evacuation so we all survived.
At some point, Daxos cast Approach of the Second Sun when they had Jin Gitaxias out. Which meant they drew it at their end step. Luckily, I had a Windfall to make them discard it. They ended up casting Memory to shuffle it back in which meant that for the rest of the game we had to keep hoping they didn't draw it again. In the meantime, they continued working to clear the board with things like Fumigate.
At some point, Ruric Thar cast their general with 3 life left. I had Undermine in hand so I could have killed them. I chose to forgo that at the time in case I needed to counter Approach on Daxos's turn. I ended up just attacking Ruric Thar by clearing their board and attacking them for 3.
With the threat of Approach just ending the game and Daxos continually trying to dig for it, Daxos become the target. Jarad attacked them and did what they could. Towards the end of the game, Daxos was at 5 life. I swung into them for 3 damage in order to get them down to 2 life. At my end step, Jarad sacrificed Brawn to have everyone lose 3 life. From there, it was just me against Jarad and I don't think that deck can beat mine one on one (at least, not this late in the game). I bounced all their stuff with Cyclonic Rift and attacked them and then just handled each thing they brought down so I could ensure that I could continue getting in. Rift happened immediately after they cast Avenger of Zendikar so I slowed them down a little there.
For a while, I was just attacking into Jarad with a few of my larger creatures such as Kefnet. I then had Bontu the Reckoner and was able to sac some smaller things to let me attack with it. I also got Dream Eater down which gave me another attacker while bouncing a blocker. Jarad did what they could to try to keep my board clear but I had too many answers in hand and too many things on the field. I dropped in a Kokusho, the Evening Star on the field and I sacrificed Kokusho to have Jarad lose 5 life and so I could attack with Bontu and my other creatures.
The final play was when I had Sygg, Bontu, Spellseeker, and Kefnet on the board. I attacked into Jarad so they got down to 4 life. I sacrificed Sygg, Spellseeker, and Kefnet to bring them down to 1. I then cast Crush of Tentacles for its Surge cost (I had cast Snuff Out earlier to clear out a blocker). This bounced Bontu but got me a token. I recast Bontu and sacrificed the token to have them lose their final life.
The final game resulted in Daxos unfortunately not doing as much as I think they wanted to do and they ended up in a number of situations where they did not have any counterspells so their interaction was limited.
The bulk of the beginning of this game was mostly me with Sygg and Dimir Cutpurse attacking Daxos and Ruric Thar. I attacked Ruric Thar since their general causes me problems and I attacked Daxos because they were drawing cards off Rhystic Study so I wanted to keep them in check. Since I didn't get to my Reliquary Tower or Venser's Journal and because I was drawing 3 cards a turn I was either discarding or I was simply choosing not to use Sygg's draw ability. This kept my hand full and helped me hit my land drops (I still missed one or two I think).
At one point, Ruric Thar cast a Skyshroud Claim. Daxos responded with Aven Mindcensor. In response I activated Field of Ruin to destroy a land of Ruric Thar's. If it was Ghost Quarter or something, I would have waited for the Aven to resolve but I wanted to search for a land off of it. The Mindcensor caused Ruric Thar to only find 1 land. Overall, the Mindcensor did very little that game that we saw, but it likely slowed down Ruric Thar mostly and caused Jarad to play around it in ways we didn't see. Boundless Realms is often a problem card for us so it helps slow down the ramp player.
Shortly after this, I cast Mystic Confluence to reset Jarad's board by bouncing their three creatures. I needed to do this since they had counters on their creatures and had a lot of power on board so this kept them in check. I attacked them, cast Twilight Prophet, and passed the turn.
Eventually, Jarad and Ruric Thar started really getting out of control owing mostly to a Sylvan Offering from Ruric Thar. I cleared the board with a timely Evacuation. Unfortunately for Daxos, they had been getting hit pretty hard with being attacked and Jarad's activations so they were at 3 life. Ruric Thar wasn't fairing much better as they were at 7. Daxos started their turn and they cast Solemn and Kefnet. After casting Kefnet, they had 2 mana open. I decided to try to kill them by casting Undermine on Kefnet. I decided to do it after Solemn so they would have less mana available. In response, they cast Swords to Plowshares on Solemn staying alive at 2 life.
On my turn, I drew into, and cast, Exsanguinate for X=7 to kill both Ruric Thar and Daxos. This left me with 1 mana untapped since the game was fairly short and I hadn't done much for ramping. From here, it was just Jarad and I going back and forth and, much like the first game, they had a hard time against me. I believe I ended up killing them with sacrificing Kokusho (to Bontu I think) and then attacking for the final 3 damage I needed.
The deck felt much better this week but I am not entirely sure it was just the strength of the deck or lines being taken. I think a larger part of the deck's success was because of the lower pressure being put on by the Black/Green deck. Jarad had just changed their general from Skullbriar to Jarad this week and Skullbriar is much faster in terms of killing someone but much worse in actually winning overall. So, their decision to move to a slower general does help my deck out. I do think the deck has its own strengths, but it had a ridiculously difficult time against Skullbriar so the success this week can at least somewhat be attributed to their decision to change generals.
Beyond that, the deck felt very "put together". That is, there were a lot of things that happened that just felt like they happened because I worked to make the cards synergize or follow a set focus. Mystical Teachings to get an answer and then flashing it back later to save me. Or casting Stunt Double to get a flash blocker or utility creature to answer something or provide a threat. Or the counter suite to help protect me or, in situations that always seem like Daxos is on the receiving end, ensure someone else loses.