Im not really a fan of going infinite, and tutors are also largely discouraged. Hence, I take a more draw cards approach.
If someone dies to a four card combo that takes multiple turns to assemble, can be easily disrupted by Doom Blade, in a deck that can't tutor for the pieces (outside of tutors that have summoning sickness or an 8 mana investment) then I don't the slightest bit of remorse.
Descendants' path is a ticking timebomb. As soon as you get one changeling, it can easily get you yet another.
Although a lot of cards are nice to combo with a changeling, such as Wirewood Savage or Loam Dweller, they have little to no impact on their own and they often sport a creature type that isnt easily intermingled.
Wirewood Savage draws cards? I feel like in a way that's significantly more consistent then Descendants' path. Descendants' path requires a changeling on board and then it has a 50% chance of drawing you a card every turn. I just have a hard time expecting that to be anywhere near good enough with no top deck manipulation.
From my experience, to make a changeling deck really formidable is that you want to consider the changeling as cheap 'clones'. That is, combine it with creatures that do something really serious with their own creature type. Just getting 1 changeling alongside then quickly becomes 'ok this is serious' into 'omg whats happening? 10 5/5s coming my way?!'
I feel like I have done this thing? My non-changelings are either ramp, card advantage, removal or a combo-piece (usually while ramping or providing card advantage). What would you define as "really serious" with their own creature type? The only things that turn changelings into 5/5s that I know of off hand are Coat of Arms and Crucible of Fire.
I finally put my deck together and played some games, and so far it's been a blast. Strangely I kept drawing the same half of the deck (I cast Knowledge Exploitation on turn 4 three games in a row) so I'm looking forward to playing with Higure and some of the other cards that have been talked about.
How has the deck been running for you. Could you post your list? I'm curious to know how similar it is to my own. Any particular standout cards? I've been running into a bunch of wrath spells and been getting blown out. Have you had this problem at all? This deck top-decks terribly and really wants to over-commit to the board for maximum value.
Kaalia, Zenith Seeker - A good, efficient flying body that has a decent chance of drawing 1 or 2 cards with the deck running 18+ changelings as well as some actual dragons, Kaalia might squeeze in for me. Might need some testing to see how reliable the draw is. If this ever draws 3 its insane.
I play Gishath, Sun's Avatar with ~25 dinosaurs. Gishath has missed for me a couple of times. It's enough of a feels bad there that I doubt I'll run Kaalia here. Bouncing her with Mirror Entity and Hibernation Sliver does seem cool though.
Omnath, Locus of the Roil - I'm more unsure about this one. It'll be an FTK a reasonable amount of the time which is alright, and slowly growing our changelings or itself into bigger threats is nice (especially for me since I'm running the full suite of fetches), but we don't run enough land ramp to reliably get to 8 lands and that's where most of the value of this thing lies. I was initially high on it, but thinking about it more has me less optimistic.
I usually only have 2-3 changelings on the battlefield max at anytime due to the amount of wrath spells I've been seeing. Him being a shock is super underwhelming. I'd consider him much more if I knew I could consistently hit 8 lands for him.
Other than those and Risen Reef (which is an auto-include), I'm not seeing anything else worth running.
Pretty much, which is fine because Risen Reef is boss.
Finally got myself a Morophon, the Boundless so I'm adding that and cutting Loam Dweller. The dweller just didn't do nearly enough. No idea what I'll cut for Risen Reef. I'll deal with that problem in a few weeks.
Here's my list. I think they're pretty similar, but the two most notable differences are the manabase (I decided to follow darren's suit and stick with a traditional, non-budget manabase) as well as cutting almost all the Champion dorks as well as Myr Galvanizer - I drew the Galvanizer in about half the games I played and he was incredibly mediocre every time, I'm not convinced he's worth running just for the combo alone.
Looking ahead, in addition to Risen Reef, I'm probably going to pick up Wirewood Symbiote and give it a try too (though I worry about having too many bouncers and not enough things to do with the bounce). Coat of Arms is an idea I hadn't considered (though it seems so obvious that I'm not sure why) so I might try and test that. I'm also going to try and explore the idea of running a lot of tribal-exclusionary wraths as a way of keeping up on board to buy time for my synergies to come together - I'm already running Crux of Fate and Widespread Brutality, and Wakening Sun's Avatar was a recent inclusion I'm eager to try out, but Rakdos, the Showstopper might find its way back in and Hythonia the Cruel might work OK as well (though I'm more dubious of that one).
How has the deck been running for you. Could you post your list? I'm curious to know how similar it is to my own. Any particular standout cards? I've been running into a bunch of wrath spells and been getting blown out. Have you had this problem at all? This deck top-decks terribly and really wants to over-commit to the board for maximum value.
I've only played about 5 or 6 games so the sample size isn't large, but so far it's played about how I thought it would, I.E. with wild swings of variance. Of those games, the highest point was curving Manaweft Sliver + changelings into turn 4 Sliver Queen into turn 5 tutor for Hibernation Sliver which helped dodge a wrath that same turn cycle, turn 6 I replayed everything and then finally turn 7 I assembled Cloudshredder Sliver + Reaper King + Impostor of the Sixth Pride in play, which with the other two slivers is "Pay 2 life: Destroy target permanent". My opponents scooped to just that combo, and I even randomly drew into Tolsimir that turn but was a mana short of playing it alongside everything else. That's probably the closest thing to this deck's nut draw.
The lowest point was being stuck on 4 lands for most of another game, with a draw that had both Hibernation Sliver and Walker of Secret Ways but no ways to abuse them and only 1 changeling to go along with my various tribal lords. Ways to filter cards or hit land drops seem pretty important for making sure the deck can function into the late game. I wish I could play like 5 copies of Elder Pine of Jukai.
Two cards that seemed continuously impressive without ever being cast were Patriarch's Bidding and Living Death. Half the games I played I had one of these cards in hand and could play to the board knowing I could get everything back if a wrath hit (though I never actually cast them, either because I wasn't wrathed and won or because I died with my board in tact). Living Death being a pseudo-wrath that gets around indestructible is nice too.
Here's my list. I think they're pretty similar, but the two most notable differences are the manabase (I decided to follow darren's suit and stick with a traditional, non-budget manabase) as well as cutting almost all the Champion dorks as well as Myr Galvanizer - I drew the Galvanizer in about half the games I played and he was incredibly mediocre every time, I'm not convinced he's worth running just for the combo alone.
I really think the Champion dorks are really strong. I just have way better luck with them it seems, see my above experience. Galvanizer is really bad outside that combo. I've almost never drawn him and the times that I have it usually rapidly lets me combo off. I'll put him higher on my watch list though, because he is really terrible in a vacuum.
Looking ahead, in addition to Risen Reef, I'm probably going to pick up Wirewood Symbiote and give it a try too (though I worry about having too many bouncers and not enough things to do with the bounce). Coat of Arms is an idea I hadn't considered (though it seems so obvious that I'm not sure why) so I might try and test that. I'm also going to try and explore the idea of running a lot of tribal-exclusionary wraths as a way of keeping up on board to buy time for my synergies to come together - I'm already running Crux of Fate and Widespread Brutality, and Wakening Sun's Avatar was a recent inclusion I'm eager to try out, but Rakdos, the Showstopper might find its way back in and Hythonia the Cruel might work OK as well (though I'm more dubious of that one).
Ironically, I had someone play Crux of Fate against me naming dragons. I think my meta-game is a bit less creature reliant, I'm pretty comfortable with the two wrath spells I'm running. Crux of Fate is great, but I have a ton of dragon cards already. :/
I've only played about 5 or 6 games so the sample size isn't large, but so far it's played about how I thought it would, I.E. with wild swings of variance. Of those games, the highest point was curving Manaweft Sliver + changelings into turn 4 Sliver Queen into turn 5 tutor for Hibernation Sliver which helped dodge a wrath that same turn cycle, turn 6 I replayed everything and then finally turn 7 I assembled Cloudshredder Sliver + Reaper King + Impostor of the Sixth Pride in play, which with the other two slivers is "Pay 2 life: Destroy target permanent". My opponents scooped to just that combo, and I even randomly drew into Tolsimir that turn but was a mana short of playing it alongside everything else. That's probably the closest thing to this deck's nut draw.
The lowest point was being stuck on 4 lands for most of another game, with a draw that had both Hibernation Sliver and Walker of Secret Ways but no ways to abuse them and only 1 changeling to go along with my various tribal lords. Ways to filter cards or hit land drops seem pretty important for making sure the deck can function into the late game. I wish I could play like 5 copies of Elder Pine of Jukai.
Two cards that seemed continuously impressive without ever being cast were Patriarch's Bidding and Living Death. Half the games I played I had one of these cards in hand and could play to the board knowing I could get everything back if a wrath hit (though I never actually cast them, either because I wasn't wrathed and won or because I died with my board in tact). Living Death being a pseudo-wrath that gets around indestructible is nice too.
Personally I'm thinking of cutting Sliver Overlord. I find casting it, paying 3 mana and then the casting cost of a sliver to be prohibitively slow. The only thing I ever really wanted to search for was Sliver Hivelord which I cut.
Patriarch's Bidding and Coat of Arms seem great, I'm just worried about the fact that they benefit everyone. I think other people might get more use out of casting them than I do. My metagame has a bunch of graveyard abuse decks and token swarms are always popular. This is the primary reason I hadn't added them myself.
I'm also planning on porting this over to mtgNexus in the near future.
I really think the Champion dorks are really strong. I just have way better luck with them it seems, see my above experience. Galvanizer is really bad outside that combo. I've almost never drawn him and the times that I have it usually rapidly lets me combo off. I'll put him higher on my watch list though, because he is really terrible in a vacuum.
TBF I never really played with the Champion dorks much; I goldfished the deck a couple times and they were consistently awkward and not very useful to cast so I cut them early on in testing. I did recently manage to protect a creature from a wrath (ironically a Crux of Fate) by tutoring up my one Champion dork to protect it, but that's a play I can't see making more than once in a game generally speaking. I'll pay attention to how often I want to tutor them up in the future. My other issue with Galvanizer, aside from half its use being with combo, is its other main use is generating lots of mana and cards with things like Manaweft Sliver or Azami, but generally speaking when I have one of those cards + a couple of changelings the deck is already performing extremely well, so it feels a bit win-more.
Ironically, I had someone play Crux of Fate against me naming dragons. I think my meta-game is a bit less creature reliant, I'm pretty comfortable with the two wrath spells I'm running. Crux of Fate is great, but I have a ton of dragon cards already. :/
The meta I play this deck in generally has a lot of "fair" creature decks so it's important for me to have an answer to a scary board at some point or another. I only just put the Avatar in so no idea how it plays yet; half the reason I'm running it is just to check off Dinosaur. :>
Personally I'm thinking of cutting Sliver Overlord. I find casting it, paying 3 mana and then the casting cost of a sliver to be prohibitively slow. The only thing I ever really wanted to search for was Sliver Hivelord which I cut.
For me Hivelord has been pretty great, granted the couples times I drew it I also had a mana dork to help activate it quickly. It also has some amazing tutor targets. Hibernation Sliver has been one of the best cards in the deck for me, protecting me from wraths, working well with ETBs, and of course being a combo piece. Harmonic Sliver has been key to stopping some shenanigans. I also run a slightly bigger Sliver package with Cloudshredder Sliver. Being a big 7/7 is also nice for holding off attacks or attacking itself. If your meta is faster it might be a reasonable cut though.
Patriarch's Bidding and Coat of Arms seem great, I'm just worried about the fact that they benefit everyone. I think other people might get more use out of casting them than I do. My metagame has a bunch of graveyard abuse decks and token swarms are always popular. This is the primary reason I hadn't added them myself.
I played a game recently where another player at the table played Coat of Arms, and that was enough to convince me it probably doesn't belong in my deck. There's too many ways for other players to have more creature than me since the deck doesn't really make tokens, and me having 2 or 3 15/15s isn't as good as someone having 8 10/10s.
I'm also planning on porting this over to mtgNexus in the near future.
And I'll definitely be joining you there. :>
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If someone dies to a four card combo that takes multiple turns to assemble, can be easily disrupted by Doom Blade, in a deck that can't tutor for the pieces (outside of tutors that have summoning sickness or an 8 mana investment) then I don't the slightest bit of remorse.
Wirewood Savage draws cards? I feel like in a way that's significantly more consistent then Descendants' path. Descendants' path requires a changeling on board and then it has a 50% chance of drawing you a card every turn. I just have a hard time expecting that to be anywhere near good enough with no top deck manipulation.
I feel like I have done this thing? My non-changelings are either ramp, card advantage, removal or a combo-piece (usually while ramping or providing card advantage). What would you define as "really serious" with their own creature type? The only things that turn changelings into 5/5s that I know of off hand are Coat of Arms and Crucible of Fire.
How has the deck been running for you. Could you post your list? I'm curious to know how similar it is to my own. Any particular standout cards? I've been running into a bunch of wrath spells and been getting blown out. Have you had this problem at all? This deck top-decks terribly and really wants to over-commit to the board for maximum value.
I play Gishath, Sun's Avatar with ~25 dinosaurs. Gishath has missed for me a couple of times. It's enough of a feels bad there that I doubt I'll run Kaalia here. Bouncing her with Mirror Entity and Hibernation Sliver does seem cool though.
I usually only have 2-3 changelings on the battlefield max at anytime due to the amount of wrath spells I've been seeing. Him being a shock is super underwhelming. I'd consider him much more if I knew I could consistently hit 8 lands for him.
Pretty much, which is fine because Risen Reef is boss.
Finally got myself a Morophon, the Boundless so I'm adding that and cutting Loam Dweller. The dweller just didn't do nearly enough. No idea what I'll cut for Risen Reef. I'll deal with that problem in a few weeks.
The Ur-Dragon (WUBRG) - Changeling Combo Tribal
Chromium (WUB) - Artifact Beats
Progenitus (WUBRG) - Dredge
Damia, Sage of Stone (GBU) - Elf-storm Tendrils
My Cube Unpowered
My Peasant-ish/Tribal-ish Cube
1x The Ur-Dragon
Land (36)
1x Mutavault
1x Swarmyard
1x Murmuring Bosk
1x Arid Mesa
1x Badlands
1x Bayou
1x Blood Crypt
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Breeding Pool
1x Command Tower
1x Exotic Orchard
1x Flooded Strand
1x Godless Shrine
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Marsh Flats
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Path of Ancestry
1x Plateau
1x Polluted Delta
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Savannah
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Scrubland
1x Steam Vents
1x Stomping Ground
1x Taiga
1x Temple Garden
1x Tropical Island
1x Tundra
1x Underground Sea
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Volcanic Island
1x Watery Grave
1x Windswept Heath
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Amoeboid Changeling
1x Avian Changeling
1x Chameleon Colossus
1x Changeling Hero
1x Changeling Outcast
1x Fire-Belly Changeling
1x Graveshifter
1x Impostor of the Sixth Pride
1x Irregular Cohort
1x Mirror Entity
1x Moonglove Changeling
1x Morophon, the Boundless
1x Mothdust Changeling
1x Shapesharer
1x Skeletal Changeling
1x Taurean Mauler
1x Universal Automaton
1x Unsettled Mariner
1x Valiant Changeling
1x Venomous Changeling
1x Woodland Changeling
1x Crib Swap
Wizards
1x Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1x Sigil Tracer
Slivers
1x Cloudshredder Sliver
1x Gemhide Sliver
1x Harmonic Sliver
1x Hibernation Sliver
1x Manaweft Sliver
1x Sliver Overlord
Spirits
1x Elder Pine of Jukai
Druids
1x Gilt-Leaf Archdruid
Allys
1x Harabaz Druid
1x Sea Gate Loremaster
1x Tuktuk Scrapper
1x Higure, the Still Wind
1x Walker of Secret Ways
1x Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow
Knights
1x Khorvath Brightflame
Dragons
1x Lathliss, Dragon Queen
1x Sylvia Brightspear
1x Crux of Fate
1x Dragon's Hoard
1x Spit Flame
Rebels
1x Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero
Goblins
1x Moggcatcher
Elves
1x Priest of Titania
1x Skyshroud Poacher
Cats
1x Qasali Slingers
Scarecrows
1x Reaper King
Shamans
1x Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro
Merfolk
1x Seahunter
Snakes
1x Seshiro the Anointed
Wolves
1x Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves
Sphinxes
1x Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign
Dinosaurs
1x Wakening Sun's Avatar
Beasts
1x Wirewood Savage
Demons
1x Liliana's Contract
Rogues
1x Knowledge Exploitation
Armys
1x Widespread Brutality
Tribal Support
1x Living Death
1x Patriarch's Bidding
1x Peer Pressure
Looking ahead, in addition to Risen Reef, I'm probably going to pick up Wirewood Symbiote and give it a try too (though I worry about having too many bouncers and not enough things to do with the bounce). Coat of Arms is an idea I hadn't considered (though it seems so obvious that I'm not sure why) so I might try and test that. I'm also going to try and explore the idea of running a lot of tribal-exclusionary wraths as a way of keeping up on board to buy time for my synergies to come together - I'm already running Crux of Fate and Widespread Brutality, and Wakening Sun's Avatar was a recent inclusion I'm eager to try out, but Rakdos, the Showstopper might find its way back in and Hythonia the Cruel might work OK as well (though I'm more dubious of that one).
I've only played about 5 or 6 games so the sample size isn't large, but so far it's played about how I thought it would, I.E. with wild swings of variance. Of those games, the highest point was curving Manaweft Sliver + changelings into turn 4 Sliver Queen into turn 5 tutor for Hibernation Sliver which helped dodge a wrath that same turn cycle, turn 6 I replayed everything and then finally turn 7 I assembled Cloudshredder Sliver + Reaper King + Impostor of the Sixth Pride in play, which with the other two slivers is "Pay 2 life: Destroy target permanent". My opponents scooped to just that combo, and I even randomly drew into Tolsimir that turn but was a mana short of playing it alongside everything else. That's probably the closest thing to this deck's nut draw.
The lowest point was being stuck on 4 lands for most of another game, with a draw that had both Hibernation Sliver and Walker of Secret Ways but no ways to abuse them and only 1 changeling to go along with my various tribal lords. Ways to filter cards or hit land drops seem pretty important for making sure the deck can function into the late game. I wish I could play like 5 copies of Elder Pine of Jukai.
Two cards that seemed continuously impressive without ever being cast were Patriarch's Bidding and Living Death. Half the games I played I had one of these cards in hand and could play to the board knowing I could get everything back if a wrath hit (though I never actually cast them, either because I wasn't wrathed and won or because I died with my board in tact). Living Death being a pseudo-wrath that gets around indestructible is nice too.
Have one champion (say Titan) in hand and one changeling championing (say hero) the Wirewood Symbiote. Cast the Changeling Titan, champion the Changeling Hero. Use Wirewood Symbiote to bounce the Changeling Titan and untap Priest of Titania, the Changeling Hero returns and champions the Wirewood Symbiote. You've returned to the start of the loop. My friend drew into it while storming through his deck with Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign and Morophon, the Boundless.
I really think the Champion dorks are really strong. I just have way better luck with them it seems, see my above experience. Galvanizer is really bad outside that combo. I've almost never drawn him and the times that I have it usually rapidly lets me combo off. I'll put him higher on my watch list though, because he is really terrible in a vacuum.
Ironically, I had someone play Crux of Fate against me naming dragons. I think my meta-game is a bit less creature reliant, I'm pretty comfortable with the two wrath spells I'm running. Crux of Fate is great, but I have a ton of dragon cards already. :/
How has Wakening Sun's Avatar been for you? 8 mana is a lot.
Personally I'm thinking of cutting Sliver Overlord. I find casting it, paying 3 mana and then the casting cost of a sliver to be prohibitively slow. The only thing I ever really wanted to search for was Sliver Hivelord which I cut.
Patriarch's Bidding and Coat of Arms seem great, I'm just worried about the fact that they benefit everyone. I think other people might get more use out of casting them than I do. My metagame has a bunch of graveyard abuse decks and token swarms are always popular. This is the primary reason I hadn't added them myself.
I'm also planning on porting this over to mtgNexus in the near future.
The Ur-Dragon (WUBRG) - Changeling Combo Tribal
Chromium (WUB) - Artifact Beats
Progenitus (WUBRG) - Dredge
Damia, Sage of Stone (GBU) - Elf-storm Tendrils
My Cube Unpowered
My Peasant-ish/Tribal-ish Cube
TBF I never really played with the Champion dorks much; I goldfished the deck a couple times and they were consistently awkward and not very useful to cast so I cut them early on in testing. I did recently manage to protect a creature from a wrath (ironically a Crux of Fate) by tutoring up my one Champion dork to protect it, but that's a play I can't see making more than once in a game generally speaking. I'll pay attention to how often I want to tutor them up in the future. My other issue with Galvanizer, aside from half its use being with combo, is its other main use is generating lots of mana and cards with things like Manaweft Sliver or Azami, but generally speaking when I have one of those cards + a couple of changelings the deck is already performing extremely well, so it feels a bit win-more.
The meta I play this deck in generally has a lot of "fair" creature decks so it's important for me to have an answer to a scary board at some point or another. I only just put the Avatar in so no idea how it plays yet; half the reason I'm running it is just to check off Dinosaur. :>
For me Hivelord has been pretty great, granted the couples times I drew it I also had a mana dork to help activate it quickly. It also has some amazing tutor targets. Hibernation Sliver has been one of the best cards in the deck for me, protecting me from wraths, working well with ETBs, and of course being a combo piece. Harmonic Sliver has been key to stopping some shenanigans. I also run a slightly bigger Sliver package with Cloudshredder Sliver. Being a big 7/7 is also nice for holding off attacks or attacking itself. If your meta is faster it might be a reasonable cut though.
I played a game recently where another player at the table played Coat of Arms, and that was enough to convince me it probably doesn't belong in my deck. There's too many ways for other players to have more creature than me since the deck doesn't really make tokens, and me having 2 or 3 15/15s isn't as good as someone having 8 10/10s.
And I'll definitely be joining you there. :>