Super Vengevine is an aggro deck that abuses the free creatures (Burning-Tree Emissary and Hidden Herbalists) to power out Myr Superion, Vengevine and/or Reckless Bushwhacker. It’s capable of putting 7+ points of power on the board on turn 2 in a variety of ways (see the “Openers” section for more - if you want to know all the busted starts this deck is capable of, read that first).
Why should you play it?
- Fast.
- Resilient to removal. Vengevine is a recurring threat, and Gather the Pack is a 2-for-1 with spell mastery.
- Has threats that survive Anger of the Gods, unlike the other Bushwhacker decks.
- Has lots of haste threats. If your opponent sees an empty field and attacks instead of leaving creatures back to block, he may be caught off guard when you get back Vengevines and/or cast a Reckless Bushwhacker on the next turn.
- Not entirely reliant on the graveyard. The BTE into Superion/Bushwhacker hands hit hard and don’t rely on the graveyard. Grafdigger’s Cage doesn’t turn off Hooting Mandrills or Gather the Pack’s spell mastery.
Well, it can’t be all roses. What does this deck lose to?
- To itself, when you don’t draw a BTE/Herbalist for Superion, or a discard outlet for Vengevine in hand, or any kind of action. This deck does not mulligan very well due to its heavy reliance on getting certain card combinations together. You will have to take gambles with 1-land Looting hands instead of mulliganing.
- To discard/Spell Snare, taking your BTE/Herbalists when you have Myr Superion or Reckless Bushwhacker in hand.
- To board wipes, if all you played was a BTE into Bushwhacker chain and subsequently ate Anger of the Gods or Whipflare. (Not to contradict my earlier point of this deck being resilient to removal, but sometimes you just draw the wrong threats.)
- To Eidolon of Rhetoric, which stops the whole deck’s gimmick. Fortunately it’s a 1-of in the decks that play it, so you can still explode on turn 2/3 before it comes down.
- To Chalice of the Void on 2. Other than Reclamation Sage, the artifact removal spells cost 2, so they would be stopped by Chalice too. However, not many decks play Chalice, let alone at 2 (which would require 4 mana).
Card Choices
The notorious Dredge enabler from Shadows over Innistrad makes an appearance here. It does a lot of little things: discard Vengevine, turn on Herbalists, and feed Mandrills. It’s even useful when not sacrificed: it can attack through one blocker or draw two blockers to itself with menace, and pick up an extra point of power from Bushwhacker. It’s especially surprising when you play Neonate + Bushwhacker and attack with a menace guy that wasn’t there at the start of the turn.
The best way of getting creatures into the graveyard across Modern, whether it’s Griselbrand, Fatestitcher, or Vengevine. It offers card selection - you can use it to dig for a second land, or discard Superions that you can’t cast - at the cost of card advantage. It makes up for this slightly with flashback.
Vengevine should pretty much always be discarded to Looting. It's much better in the graveyard than it is in your hand. Discarding an instant/sorcery turns on spell mastery for Gather the Pack.
Possibly the best all-around card in Modern. Kills creatures and burns out players and PWs, all at instant speed. In desperate situations, you can kill one of your creatures (hopefully Vengevine, since it comes back!) to turn on Hidden Herbalists.
While Lightning Bolt is an instant, sometimes you have to cast it on your turn for maximum effect. These include:
- achieving spell mastery for Gather the Pack
- feeding Hooting Mandrills
- as a starter spell for Reckless Bushwhacker
- against Infect when they’re tapped out
The enablers of the deck. BTE is clearly the better of the two, since it doesn’t require setup and can cast red spells like Bushwhacker at the end of the chain. If you have both in your hand, lead with Herbalists.
Sometimes it is correct to NOT play every single BTE/Herbalist in your hand at the first opportunity you get, because the extras can enable cards on a later turn, perhaps even cards that you haven’t seen yet. An obvious example is a hand with two BTEs and one each of Superion and Bushwhacker - playing one BTE and one Superion is much better than playing both BTEs and Superion, since the second BTE enables Bushwhacker next turn. You don't lose anything by saving the BTE for next turn, as Bushwhacker grants haste.
These are your payoff cards for playing BTE and Herbalists.
Superion is just big. Bigger than Tasigur, the Golden Fang, or the average Tarmogoyf. It’s even bigger than Gurmag Angler!
Vengevine is not as big as Superion, but still can cause a lot of damage, has haste, and comes back over and over again after it’s killed. Really, what more could you expect from a free creature? Its casting cost is also reasonable in case you need to hardcast it.
Vengevine triggers off casted creatures. It doesn’t matter if they are countered (although it’s harder to play a second creature if your first was BTE/Herbalists and you were relying on the mana it produced for the second). Also, it ETBs before the second creature, so if you play Bushwhacker as your second creature, Vengevine will receive the boost.
You can kill your own Vengevine with instant-speed removal like Bolt to save it from removal that exiles, like Anger of the Gods. Better dead than exiled (if you don't mind spending Bolt, that is)!
Bushwhacker is your one-turn lord that grants haste. It’s better than Goblin Bushwhacker, since BTE can cast it without Manamorphose. You don't necessarily need BTE to combo with it - Neonate and Mandrills are cheap and can serve as the first spell to kickstart Bushwhacker (as well as a body for it to pump!) on turn 3 onwards.
Gather the Pack can be casted off BTE or Herbalists mana. It helps mill into Vengevine while providing the resources to trigger it. Mandrills and Gather the Pack itself also like having a stocked graveyard.
Gather the Pack is a worse Commune with the Gods without spell mastery, but it doesn’t matter since the deck has no (maindeck) enchantments anyway. With spell mastery, it’s pretty insane. Two creatures are all you need to return Vengevine, and if those two creatures are BTE+Superion or BTE+Bushwhacker, you might not even need that Vengevine!
Sometimes, it’s worth NOT putting a creature into your hand with Gather the Pack. The first instance is if you reveal Vengevine and have no discard outlets, nor are anywhere close to hardcasting it. The second is if you need to cast Mandrills this turn, but putting a card in your hand would leave you one mana short.
Other options for this slot include: Commune with the Gods: can get SBed enchantments Tracker's Instincts: looks at fewer cards than Gather the Pack or Commune with the Gods, but can be reused if you splash blue. Also, it won't come up often, but if there is a creature, you must put it in your hand. Satyr Wayfinder: Finds lands. Is a creature, can trigger Vengevine and pick up Bushwhacker’s boost. Grapple with the Past: mills less than Gather the Pack, but can get creatures that were already in the graveyard. The instant doesn't really matter since you must spend BTE/Herbalists mana on your turn anyway.
Note: you only want stuff that puts the cards that you didn’t choose in the graveyard, not the bottom of your library. So avoid things like Commune with Nature.
A decently-sized threat. Mandrills helps maintain pressure after the early turns, and is cheap enough to play with another creature in order to bring back Vengevine. Looting, milling and getting your guys killed all feed it. Its high converted mana cost offers it protection from CMC-matters removal spells like Abrupt Decay or Fatal Push, despite costing only one green mana to cast in most cases.
When delving, you’ll want to keep Vengevine (obviously), Faithless Looting, and other instants and sorceries (for Gather the Pack). If your opponent has Tarmogoyf, Myr Superion should be actively delved away, since it provides the artifact card type for Goyf. Try to keep the number of card types low against Tarmogoyf. The same goes for creatures and Scavenging Ooze.
Manamorphose has plenty of interactions with the rest of the deck, but its power level is not so high that you’d want to play more than 1. It converts Herbalists’ mana into red, acts as a free first spell for Bushwhacker, and cycles for Gather the Pack or Mandrills.
A land creature. Extra bodies are always nice to have around for Bushwhacker. It can turn Gather the Pack into “put a (easily killable, summoning sick) land into your hand” if revealed. Late game, it turns Wooded Foothills into a creature.
Note that playing Dryad Arbor does not count as a creature for Vengevine.
Fetchlands are the go-to manabase for Modern decks, and this one is no exception. Herbalists needs them, and they feed the graveyard for Mandrills.
If you decide to splash a third color, you’ll need at least two lands of that color. Reason being, if you play only one, Gather the Pack might end up putting it into your graveyard, cutting you off that color for the rest of the game.
Note that with Gather the Pack, you can draw into SBed creatures with more consistency. Additionally, you can use Gather the Pack or Wayfinder to mill cards with flashback and cast them from the graveyard.
Here are some of the more notable opening hands that result in a ton of power on turn 2/3, and the amount of damage dealt if undisrupted, sorted roughly in increasing # of cards needed. I say "roughly", because some cards are more common than others (you have 8 looting effects, 8 BTE+Herbalists, and 8 Commune+Gather). Also, for hands involving Neonate, Looting, Gather or Commune, you don't need to start with every card in hand since they can draw you the necessary cards. Especially for Gather or Commune; those dig deep.
Note: Herbalists needs fetchland/Neonate for revolt.
If you play a T1 Neonate to discard Vengevine, sac it on turn 2.
Add 2 power for every additional BTE/Herbalists, 3 if Bushwhacker is involved.
Add 4 power for every additional Vengevine reanimated, 5 if Bushwhacker is involved.
T1 anything
T2 BTE, Superion. 7 power (14 damage by turn 4)
T1 anything
T2 BTE, Bushwhacker. 5 power, all haste (13 damage by turn 4)
*Since the damage output of this "combo" is not fantastic, I prefer to cast Gather/Commune on turn 2 if it's available, unless I have multiple BTEs or really need a clock.
T1 Neonate
T2 BTE, Bushwhacker. 7 power, all haste (17 damage by turn 4)
T1 anything
T2 Gather
*Vengevine in graveyard now
T3 Mandrills, Bushwhacker. 12 power, all haste (22 damage by turn 4)
T1 anything
T2 Gather
T3 BTE/Herbalists, Mandrills, Bushwhacker. 10 power, all haste (18 damage by turn 4)
T1 anything
T2 BTE/Herbalists, Superion
T3 BTE, Bushwhacker. 14 power, all haste (25 damage by turn 4)
*It's also possible to cast all these in one shot on turn 4, perhaps reanimating a Vengevine in the process!
T1 anything
T2 BTE/Herbalists, Superion
T3 Neonate, Bushwhacker. 13 power, all haste (23 damage by turn 4)
Any double Vengevine reanimation is at least 16 damage by the next turn.
Think carefully before you do anything!
This deck relies on synergy, more so than other aggro decks, so playing it well doesn't simply entail playing everything as soon as you can. You'll miss a lot of opportunities if you just try to cast everything on curve, because there are several cards that rely on saving up resources and unleashing them at the right time.
Below are some common situations where the correct play is not always the obvious one, along with reasons for making or not making that play.
Should I play this creature?
YES!
- Because it will trigger Vengevine.
- Because I'm playing Bushwhacker this turn, and it'll receive the boost.
- Because I need an extra body to pressure my opponent.
- Because the creature in question is Herbalists, and revolt is on this turn but not the next (or not in the forseeable future).
NO!
- Because I can use it to enable Superion, Vengevine or Bushwhacker in the future (even if none of those are in my hand/graveyard now).
- Because I'll be playing Bushwhacker next turn, which gives it haste. Playing it now would just expose it to a board wipe and/or give away information.
On turn 2, when faced with the choice of BTE + Bushwhacker or Gather the Pack, it's often better to cast Gather. Gather gives you the opportunity to mill into Vengevine and/or put Mandrills into your hand, for a more impactful turn 3.
When you're on 3 lands with a BTE and Gather the Pack in hand, you can play BTE followed by Gather, hope to mill Vengevine blind and reveal a 1-drop, then play the 1-drop and get Vengevine back. Of course, this carries a bit of risk since you have to commit to BTE. If you already have the 1-drop in hand or the Vengevine in the graveyard then you're less likely to whiff.
Should I play this land?
YES!
- Because I need it to cast a spell now.
- Because I need 4 mana next turn and my fourth land is Copperline Gorge.
NO!
- Because I can discard it to Looting. (It's especially tempting to play a land and cast some cheap spell immediately, but ask yourself if you REALLY need that spell now. Do you lose much by waiting one turn? What if you draw Bushwhacker?)
Generally, the deck can function on 3-4 lands. Any land beyond that should be saved as Looting discard fodder.
Should I crack this fetchland?
YES!
- Because I need to cast a spell now.
- Because I have nothing to play, and I can get a shockland tapped to save 2 life.
- Because it can enable Herbalists now.
NO!
- Because it can enable Herbalists later.
- Because I mulliganed and kept a card which I need on top.
If your hand has a fetchland, a non-fetch land, Herbalists, and Superion, clearly you'd want to play the non-fetch on turn 1 (even if you have no T1 plays), then crack the fetch on turn 2 to play Herbalists and Superion. Cracking the fetch on turn 1 for a tapped Stomping Ground leaves you unable to play T2 Herbalists into Superion.
If you mulligan down to a 1-fetchland hand and keep a land on top, don't crack the fetchland on turn 1. No turn 1 play is worth losing the guarantee of hitting your second land (even T1 Looting isn't guaranteed since cracking the fetch would randomize your deck again), unless it's to kill a Glistener Elf or something.
Should I put this Vengevine that I revealed off Gather the Pack into my hand?
YES!
- Because I have Faithless Looting or Insolent Neonate, and putting Vengevine in my hand basically negates the discard.
- Because I want to hardcast that Vengevine.
NO!
- Because I don't have Looting/Neonate.
- Because I have a Neonate, but I don't want to sac it as I need it to attack.
Sideboard Guide
Board out:
- Myr Superion against decks with Kolaghan's Command
- Lightning Bolt if it doesn't have good targets
- Commune with the Gods against fast decks
Board in:
- Lightning Axe against 5-toughness threats (e,g, Tasigur)
- Scavenging Ooze against fair decks
- Reclamation Sage or Seal of Primordium if you encounter an unexpected Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void. Board out Mandrills for these. I'm not expecting a lot of those since GGT recently got banned though. Just a reminder that you don't have to follow this guide to the letter.
Burn
-1 Insolent Neonate
-4 Commune with the Gods
+2 Lightning Axe
+2 Scavenging Ooze
+1 Kitchen Finks
Board in removal for Eidolon of the Great Revel, it punishes you for playing multiple spells in a turn. When delving with Mandrills, leave creatures in your graveyard for Gnaw and Ooze.
Affinity
-4 Commune with the Gods
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Seal of Primordium
+1 Reclamation Sage
Merfolk
-2 Commune with the Gods
+1 Reclamation Sage
+1 Seal of Primordium
Abzan
-4 Insolent Neonate
-1 Faithless Looting
+3 Blood Moon
+2 Lightning Axe
Mandrills' trample is good against Lingering Souls. They have tramplers of their own (Grim Flayer and Siege Rhino), so take out Neonate.
Abzan Company
-1 Myr Superion
-4 Commune with the Gods
+2 Lightning Axe
+2 Scavenging Ooze
+1 Reclamation Sage
Board in removal for Eidolon of Rhetoric.
Gx Tron
-4 Lightning Bolt
-1 Gather the Pack
+3 Blood Moon
+1 Fulminator Mage
+1 Ancient Grudge
(GR: -1 more Gather the Pack, +1 more Ancient Grudge; GW: -1 Hooting Mandrills, +1 Seal of Primordium)
Myr Superion survives Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, but dies to World Breaker. GW has better grave hate (Rest in Peace), but dies harder to Blood Moon.
Ad Nauseam
-4 Lightning Bolt
-1 Gather the Pack
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Seal of Primordium
+1 Reclamation Sage
+1 Blood Moon
You can't interact with the combo, but you can slow it down by blowing up the artifact mana and Phyrexian Unlife.
Lantern Control
-4 Lightning Bolt
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Seal of Primordium
+1 Reclamation Sage
Board in all your artifact removal to beat Ensnaring Bridge. The Lantern lock is quite ineffective against Faithless Looting and all the look-at-top-5 cards.
I'm not too worried about that. This deck has some tricks to push damage through, namely Neonate's menace, Mandrills' trample, and simply Bolt to kill their blockers/face.
Right now I'm looking for cards which add to the synergy of the deck. The 2-drop slot is open to optimization. Satyr Wayfinder is usually the worst T2 ender after a BTE/Herbalists chain unless it results in Vengevine coming back, but it has its uses as a creature and a land finder. I'm trying out a 2/2 Wayfinder/Commune with the Gods split.
Don't miss the fact that Undying or persist Creatures do trigger Prized Amalgam when they die.
I also thought about splashing black for Gravecrawler and Gurmag Angler.
Isn't the new Greenbelt Rampager a great card to revive Vengevines ? We can make sure to cats it twice in aturn by playing Aether Hub, since the shell is only 2 colours.
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Pioneer - A bunch of stuff Modern - Humans Legacy - Grixis Phoenix / Death & Taxes
That isn't the deck being discussed though, this deck is looking to max out on options as best it can in GR to try to consistently hit Vengevines. With Amalgam Vengevine is literally the only card that triggers it. What you're discussing is a completely different deck, much more in line to the traditional Jund Vengevine decks that are discussed in that deck thread. You'd have to really gut a lot of this deck to fit in the cards necessary to enable Amalgam, as you need to have a critical mass of enablers for that beyond just Vengevine.
Isn't the new Greenbelt Rampager a great card to revive Vengevines ? We can make sure to cats it twice in aturn by playing Aether Hub, since the shell is only 2 colours.
The floor on Rampager is pretty low though. It's a 3/4 for GGG if you don't have Vengevine or Hub. As a single card to bring Vengevine back it's probably the best, but 1) you won't always have Vengevine in the graveyard and 2) you may have some other creature in hand which you can use to revive Vengevine anyway. In those two situations Mandrills is better (especially when the other card in your hand is Bushwhacker).
I don't think you can play Aether Hub in this deck. This deck wants to play a spell every turn, and most of its sequences are pretty color-intensive - BTE is double R/G, and anything + Bushwhacker is at least RR or RG. Hub provides colored mana only once, and if you use it that way, it doesn't provide energy for Rampager. I know you can cast Rampager to make energy for Hub, but at that point Hub is basically Unknown Shores that takes in green instead of colorless.
I believe so. It has a turn 2 nut draw, and the ability to play a long game with recurring Vengevines; basically the same things that made Dredge and Amulet good.
Are the 8 fetches enough? I know you have 4 Insolent Neonate, but it is sad to see those go without Vengevine value attached to them. I know this is almost certainly a bad idea, but Wild Cantor?
This deck is sweet, and I look forward to playing it!
That's definitely a consideration, though I am not sure if you should stay at 18 lands with 9 fetches or go up to 19 lands. The thing about Herbalists is that you don't always play it immediately, not only because you can't find a revolt enabler, but also because you don't have a good follow-up (having 2 open mana and Herbalists + Bushwhacker is maddening). So you hold off casting it until you draw into something better, or loot it away if you don't.
What does Wild Cantor do?
- Enable revolt
- Store mana
- Cast Superion if you draw 2
- Cheap (or free) creature for Vengevine
You can't cast Superion reliably with 4 Wild Cantor. As a cheap/free creature it's not quite as good as the other options; Neonate has evasion and Mandrills is big and has trample. The other free creatures don't sac themselves, so they can pick up Bushwhacker boosts.
I can't think of a card I would cut for Wild Cantor. Bolt is the least synergistic card in the deck, but a solid non-synergistic card is still better than a weak synergistic card (even after considering all the things it enables).
This deck is definitely sweet, I look forward to seeing you 5-0 a League with it!
Now to wait on AER's release on mtgo so I can play. Meanwhile, I am also interested in testing mishra's bauble and maybe even hangarback walker in the side.
I am the King and biggest fan of Vengevine. I made the Dredgevine primer on the Developing Competitive thread. I ran a variant of this about two years ago for a few months. It was so inconsistent, it's not even funny. I switched to Jund Dredgevine and never looked back.
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The deck from 2013 was quite a pile, sure. But it's received a lot of upgrades since then.
- Hidden Herbalists, the latest addition, gives you more chances at a T2 Myr Superion. Previously the deck used Priest of Urabrask and Simian Spirit Guide (SSG can't actually pay for Superion, it pays for a T2 Priest which then makes Superion-usable mana). Not only is it harder to get the combo of SSG + Priest compared to fetchland + Herbalists, playing SSG made you hemorrhage CA at an alarming rate with it and Looting in the same deck. Herbalists also has slightly better combat stats than Priest.
- Gather the Pack. Along with cutting SSG, this makes you not run out of cards as fast.
- Insolent Neonate. It's not as critical in this deck compared to Dredge because you don't have dredgers to discard, but it serves another function and that's to enable Herbalists. You don't sac it as quickly as in Dredge, but that's fine - a 1/1 menace (2/1 with Bushwhacker) is still chip damage.
- Reckless Bushwhacker. Vs Goblin Bushwhacker, you can actually cast it off BTE mana without resorting to Manamorphose. On 3 lands you can also play Herbalists + Mandrills + Reckless Bushwhacker, which would be impossible with ordinary Goblin Bushwhacker.
The main changes are:
Goblin Guide -> Insolent Neonate. Guide is a nice aggro creature, but Neonate has much more utility.
Priest of Urabrask -> Hidden Herbalists. This lets you cut SSG as well.
Goblin Bushwhacker -> Reckless Bushwhacker. Lets you cut Manamorphose.
In general, you play much fewer "third wheel" cards than before (SSG and Manamorphose). Instead of needing Priest + SSG + Superion to put Superion out on turn 2, now you just need Herbalists + Superion (+ fetchland, but those are easy to come by). Instead of BTE + Manamorphose + Goblin Bushwhacker, you just need BTE + Reckless Bushwhacker. Your hands are more stable, since the deck is now a bunch of 2-card combos instead of 3-card combos. In place of the "third wheel" cards, you have the opportunity to add consistency tools like Commune with the Gods and Gather the Pack. They're not quite Ancient Stirrings, more like Peer Through Depths, but Peer is still a decent card regardless.
I don't recommend mulliganing too hard with this deck though. I'll keep any 1-land hand that has a red land and Looting. The harder you mulligan, the more likely you are to end up with a hand where none of the combinations work.
I don't recommend putting "third wheels" back into the deck either - by that I mean cards like Manamorphose, Mishra's Bauble or Memnite (funny how they all start with "M" ). Commune or Gather digging into BTE solves basically all problems that those cards would. Either that, or they'll end up digging into some other card that renders the initial problem irrelevant.
I want to play Ingot Chewer in the side.
-Enables Revolt
-Easily cast before a bushwhacker (though I get it won't attack)
-Is a creature and therefore can be gotten with Commune/Gather
-Beats Chalice when all other artifact destruction is cmc=2
I keep coming back to this thread with small thoughts, but I just love the deck, and it's killing me to wait until 1/25.
Lotus Cobra - this one intends that you run a bunch of lands, propably slightly above 18
Oath of Nissa - This looks like a serum visions, a card that we serious do not want. It doesn't put us Creatures into the grave, it's not a discard outlet, not a creature and not even anything that develops the overall-gameplan.
Ingot Chewer - the reasoning behind this one is weird. A Chalice on X = 2 intends that our Opponent has 4 Mana available. The biggest offender is Sun & Moon, a deck that is barely played at all. If i loose to a chalice on 2, i'm fine with that. I'm going to call it Variance because no other deck is playing this card right now.
I've goldfished the deck quite sometime (30+ Matches now) and it's tough decision-wisely.
Until Turn 4 i can deal 12-17 damage at average, Turn 4 is lethal almost every time.
A real nut-draw is quite rare - but maybe my expectations and intentions are too high regarding the 1-turn-blowout potential of this deck.
It's a whole lot of fun already, very tight decision-wise and has a great potential to become the better Gruul Zoo.
I wouldn't dream of cutting Gather the Pack main. It's the best effect available at that cost. Oath of Nissa doesn't dig deep enough, and doesn't put the other cards into the graveyard.
Lotus Cobra sounds reasonable, but I can't think of what I'd cut. Definitely not Herbalists, as they let you play a turn 2 Superion while Cobra doesn't. It might work if you changed the build slightly for Tracker's Instincts, since that gives you a mana sink to use Cobra mana on, and Cobra can produce blue for flashback. Maybe -4 Commune, -1 Mandrills, -1 Mountain, +3 Instincts, +2 Cobra, +1 Steam Vents?
Talara's Battalion is mostly just a worse Myr Superion. Greenwheel Liberator is arguably easier to play as a 4/3 and I don't even think that's good enough. I want free 2/2 and 4/3s, or 2-mana 5/6s. Not 2-mana 4/3s
Ingot Chewer seems worse than Ancient Grudge. If you Commune and reveal creature + Grudge, you can put the creature in hand and have Grudge in the GY for flashback. With creature + Chewer, you only get one of the two. I know it's better against Cage and Chalice, but the question is whether being able to beat those two specifically is worth more than Grudge's all-around efficiency. This deck can certainly beat a Cage without removing it from the board - Mandrills and Superion will see to that. And Chalice on 2 costs 4, so you're still good if you dump all your creatures on the board before then.
Nice deck, I'm wondering if wild cantor would be better than the insolent neonate. Beside of that the rest of the deck seems really funny. I have to test it for sure!!
Hi there!
I am looking for a different yet challenging deck besides my jeskai delver deck and I noticed this thread because of Vengevine which is one off my all time favourites.
I do have 1 or 2 questions.
Do you think this deck is competitive, can it go toe-to-toe with the top dogs like jund and abzan, or affinity and valakut decks.
The second thing I would like to know is if the deck is comparable to Dredgevine in some way and how resilient is it?
And last but not least, is the deck somewhat challenging to pilot. I really like decks with different options and lines of play, basically decks where the right desicion at the right time win you the game or give you a huge advantage.
Thanks in advance.
I believe this deck is competitive. This is a bold thing to say because someone will inevitably ask "so where are the results?" and truthfully, there aren't any (yet). However, I have played Amulet and Dredge, and this deck shares two very powerful traits with them:
1) The ability to explode on turn 2. This randomly gives you free wins and lets you sneak under hate.
2) The ability to play a long game. This isn't your ordinary aggro deck where board wipe = GG. Vengevine keeps coming back and Gather the Pack is like Thoughtcast or Lead the Stampede.
Is this deck comparable to Dredgevine? Well, they both play Vengevine. And they both have a big 2-drop (Lotleth Troll and Myr Superion). And they both have delve creatures (Gurmag Angler and Hooting Mandrills). The difference is that your engine is Commune + Gather instead of Stinkweed Imp + Golgari Thug (RIP Grave-Troll). Also, you only play 2 colors compared to Dredgevine's 3, so the mana is smoother (no R on turn 1 followed by BG on turn 2) and you get to play Blood Moon for free wins.
Is it resilient? Yes, Vengevine and Gather the Pack. You can also beat grave hate without removing it from the board.
Is the deck challenging to pilot? It's going to vary based on the amount of experience you have playing similar decks. This deck has a combo element in it, so sequencing matters. If you crack a fetch too early or play an extra BTE instead of keeping it in hand, you might lose the game because you can't cast Herbalists with revolt, or Superion off the BTE. I went through a few examples in the first post.
BTW, Myr Superion is under $2 in paper. You don't have much to lose even if it doesn't pan out
4 Arid Mesa
2 Stomping Ground
3 Mountain
1 Forest
4 Copperline Gorge
4 Insolent Neonate
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Hidden Herbalists
4 Gather the Pack
4 Commune with the Gods
4 Reckless Bushwhacker
3 Myr Superion
3 Hooting Mandrills
4 Vengevine
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Lightning Axe
3 Blood Moon
1 Fulminator Mage
2 Ravenous Trap
2 Scavenging Ooze
1 Kitchen Finks
What is this deck and why should you play it?
Why should you play it?
- Fast.
- Resilient to removal. Vengevine is a recurring threat, and Gather the Pack is a 2-for-1 with spell mastery.
- Has threats that survive Anger of the Gods, unlike the other Bushwhacker decks.
- Has lots of haste threats. If your opponent sees an empty field and attacks instead of leaving creatures back to block, he may be caught off guard when you get back Vengevines and/or cast a Reckless Bushwhacker on the next turn.
- Not entirely reliant on the graveyard. The BTE into Superion/Bushwhacker hands hit hard and don’t rely on the graveyard. Grafdigger’s Cage doesn’t turn off Hooting Mandrills or Gather the Pack’s spell mastery.
Well, it can’t be all roses. What does this deck lose to?
- To itself, when you don’t draw a BTE/Herbalist for Superion, or a discard outlet for Vengevine in hand, or any kind of action. This deck does not mulligan very well due to its heavy reliance on getting certain card combinations together. You will have to take gambles with 1-land Looting hands instead of mulliganing.
- To discard/Spell Snare, taking your BTE/Herbalists when you have Myr Superion or Reckless Bushwhacker in hand.
- To board wipes, if all you played was a BTE into Bushwhacker chain and subsequently ate Anger of the Gods or Whipflare. (Not to contradict my earlier point of this deck being resilient to removal, but sometimes you just draw the wrong threats.)
- To Eidolon of Rhetoric, which stops the whole deck’s gimmick. Fortunately it’s a 1-of in the decks that play it, so you can still explode on turn 2/3 before it comes down.
- To Chalice of the Void on 2. Other than Reclamation Sage, the artifact removal spells cost 2, so they would be stopped by Chalice too. However, not many decks play Chalice, let alone at 2 (which would require 4 mana).
Card Choices
The notorious Dredge enabler from Shadows over Innistrad makes an appearance here. It does a lot of little things: discard Vengevine, turn on Herbalists, and feed Mandrills. It’s even useful when not sacrificed: it can attack through one blocker or draw two blockers to itself with menace, and pick up an extra point of power from Bushwhacker. It’s especially surprising when you play Neonate + Bushwhacker and attack with a menace guy that wasn’t there at the start of the turn.
The best way of getting creatures into the graveyard across Modern, whether it’s Griselbrand, Fatestitcher, or Vengevine. It offers card selection - you can use it to dig for a second land, or discard Superions that you can’t cast - at the cost of card advantage. It makes up for this slightly with flashback.
Vengevine should pretty much always be discarded to Looting. It's much better in the graveyard than it is in your hand. Discarding an instant/sorcery turns on spell mastery for Gather the Pack.
Possibly the best all-around card in Modern. Kills creatures and burns out players and PWs, all at instant speed. In desperate situations, you can kill one of your creatures (hopefully Vengevine, since it comes back!) to turn on Hidden Herbalists.
While Lightning Bolt is an instant, sometimes you have to cast it on your turn for maximum effect. These include:
- achieving spell mastery for Gather the Pack
- feeding Hooting Mandrills
- as a starter spell for Reckless Bushwhacker
- against Infect when they’re tapped out
The enablers of the deck. BTE is clearly the better of the two, since it doesn’t require setup and can cast red spells like Bushwhacker at the end of the chain. If you have both in your hand, lead with Herbalists.
Sometimes it is correct to NOT play every single BTE/Herbalist in your hand at the first opportunity you get, because the extras can enable cards on a later turn, perhaps even cards that you haven’t seen yet. An obvious example is a hand with two BTEs and one each of Superion and Bushwhacker - playing one BTE and one Superion is much better than playing both BTEs and Superion, since the second BTE enables Bushwhacker next turn. You don't lose anything by saving the BTE for next turn, as Bushwhacker grants haste.
These are your payoff cards for playing BTE and Herbalists.
Superion is just big. Bigger than Tasigur, the Golden Fang, or the average Tarmogoyf. It’s even bigger than Gurmag Angler!
Vengevine is not as big as Superion, but still can cause a lot of damage, has haste, and comes back over and over again after it’s killed. Really, what more could you expect from a free creature? Its casting cost is also reasonable in case you need to hardcast it.
Vengevine triggers off casted creatures. It doesn’t matter if they are countered (although it’s harder to play a second creature if your first was BTE/Herbalists and you were relying on the mana it produced for the second). Also, it ETBs before the second creature, so if you play Bushwhacker as your second creature, Vengevine will receive the boost.
You can kill your own Vengevine with instant-speed removal like Bolt to save it from removal that exiles, like Anger of the Gods. Better dead than exiled (if you don't mind spending Bolt, that is)!
Bushwhacker is your one-turn lord that grants haste. It’s better than Goblin Bushwhacker, since BTE can cast it without Manamorphose. You don't necessarily need BTE to combo with it - Neonate and Mandrills are cheap and can serve as the first spell to kickstart Bushwhacker (as well as a body for it to pump!) on turn 3 onwards.
Gather the Pack can be casted off BTE or Herbalists mana. It helps mill into Vengevine while providing the resources to trigger it. Mandrills and Gather the Pack itself also like having a stocked graveyard.
Gather the Pack is a worse Commune with the Gods without spell mastery, but it doesn’t matter since the deck has no (maindeck) enchantments anyway. With spell mastery, it’s pretty insane. Two creatures are all you need to return Vengevine, and if those two creatures are BTE+Superion or BTE+Bushwhacker, you might not even need that Vengevine!
Sometimes, it’s worth NOT putting a creature into your hand with Gather the Pack. The first instance is if you reveal Vengevine and have no discard outlets, nor are anywhere close to hardcasting it. The second is if you need to cast Mandrills this turn, but putting a card in your hand would leave you one mana short.
Other options for this slot include:
Commune with the Gods: can get SBed enchantments
Tracker's Instincts: looks at fewer cards than Gather the Pack or Commune with the Gods, but can be reused if you splash blue. Also, it won't come up often, but if there is a creature, you must put it in your hand.
Satyr Wayfinder: Finds lands. Is a creature, can trigger Vengevine and pick up Bushwhacker’s boost.
Grapple with the Past: mills less than Gather the Pack, but can get creatures that were already in the graveyard. The instant doesn't really matter since you must spend BTE/Herbalists mana on your turn anyway.
Note: you only want stuff that puts the cards that you didn’t choose in the graveyard, not the bottom of your library. So avoid things like Commune with Nature.
A decently-sized threat. Mandrills helps maintain pressure after the early turns, and is cheap enough to play with another creature in order to bring back Vengevine. Looting, milling and getting your guys killed all feed it. Its high converted mana cost offers it protection from CMC-matters removal spells like Abrupt Decay or Fatal Push, despite costing only one green mana to cast in most cases.
When delving, you’ll want to keep Vengevine (obviously), Faithless Looting, and other instants and sorceries (for Gather the Pack). If your opponent has Tarmogoyf, Myr Superion should be actively delved away, since it provides the artifact card type for Goyf. Try to keep the number of card types low against Tarmogoyf. The same goes for creatures and Scavenging Ooze.
Manamorphose has plenty of interactions with the rest of the deck, but its power level is not so high that you’d want to play more than 1. It converts Herbalists’ mana into red, acts as a free first spell for Bushwhacker, and cycles for Gather the Pack or Mandrills.
A land creature. Extra bodies are always nice to have around for Bushwhacker. It can turn Gather the Pack into “put a (easily killable, summoning sick) land into your hand” if revealed. Late game, it turns Wooded Foothills into a creature.
Note that playing Dryad Arbor does not count as a creature for Vengevine.
Fetchlands are the go-to manabase for Modern decks, and this one is no exception. Herbalists needs them, and they feed the graveyard for Mandrills.
If you decide to splash a third color, you’ll need at least two lands of that color. Reason being, if you play only one, Gather the Pack might end up putting it into your graveyard, cutting you off that color for the rest of the game.
* denotes creatures or flashback spells.
Artifact/enchantment removal: Ancient Grudge*, Destructive Revelry, Tin Street Hooligan*, Seal of Primordium, Vithian Renegades*, Reclamation Sage*
Creature removal (small creatures): Gut Shot, Magma Spray, Pillar of Flame, Grim Lavamancer*, Electrickery
Creature removal (big creatures): Lightning Axe, Roast, Dismember, Harvest Pyre. This is the area that would improve the most by splashing a third color.
Creature bullets: Melira, Sylvok Outcast*, Phyrexian Revoker*, Spellskite*, Vexing Shusher*, Magus of the Moon*
Grave hate: Ravenous Trap, Tormod’s Crypt, Scavenging Ooze*, Loaming Shaman*. Ooze may not be too good since it needs a lot of green mana (though Herbalists does a good job at converting red to green!).
Life gain: Feed the Clan, Kitchen Finks*, Gnaw to the Bone*, Obstinate Baloth*
Big creatures: Hooting Mandrills*, Obstinate Baloth*, Thrun, the Last Troll*, Chameleon Colossus*
Note: Herbalists needs fetchland/Neonate for revolt.
If you play a T1 Neonate to discard Vengevine, sac it on turn 2.
Add 2 power for every additional BTE/Herbalists, 3 if Bushwhacker is involved.
Add 4 power for every additional Vengevine reanimated, 5 if Bushwhacker is involved.
T1 anything
T2 BTE, Superion. 7 power (14 damage by turn 4)
T1 anything
T2 BTE, Bushwhacker. 5 power, all haste (13 damage by turn 4)
*Since the damage output of this "combo" is not fantastic, I prefer to cast Gather/Commune on turn 2 if it's available, unless I have multiple BTEs or really need a clock.
T1 Neonate
T2 BTE, Bushwhacker. 7 power, all haste (17 damage by turn 4)
T1 anything
T2 Gather
*Vengevine in graveyard now
T3 Mandrills, Bushwhacker. 12 power, all haste (22 damage by turn 4)
T1 anything
T2 Gather
T3 BTE/Herbalists, Mandrills, Bushwhacker. 10 power, all haste (18 damage by turn 4)
T1 Looting/Neonate, discard Vengevine
T2 BTE/Herbalists, Superion. 11 power, 4 haste (15 damage by turn 3, 26 damage by turn 4)
T1 Looting/Neonate, discard Vengevine
T2 BTE, Bushwhacker. 10 power, all haste (18 damage by turn 3, 26 damage by turn 4)
T1 Looting/Neonate, discard Vengevine
T2 BTE, BTE, anything. 8 power, 4 haste (12 damage by turn 3, 20 damage by turn 4)
T1 anything
T2 BTE/Herbalists, Superion
T3 BTE, Bushwhacker. 14 power, all haste (25 damage by turn 4)
*It's also possible to cast all these in one shot on turn 4, perhaps reanimating a Vengevine in the process!
T1 anything
T2 BTE/Herbalists, Superion
T3 Neonate, Bushwhacker. 13 power, all haste (23 damage by turn 4)
Any double Vengevine reanimation is at least 16 damage by the next turn.
Below are some common situations where the correct play is not always the obvious one, along with reasons for making or not making that play.
Should I play this creature?
YES!
- Because it will trigger Vengevine.
- Because I'm playing Bushwhacker this turn, and it'll receive the boost.
- Because I need an extra body to pressure my opponent.
- Because the creature in question is Herbalists, and revolt is on this turn but not the next (or not in the forseeable future).
NO!
- Because I can use it to enable Superion, Vengevine or Bushwhacker in the future (even if none of those are in my hand/graveyard now).
- Because I'll be playing Bushwhacker next turn, which gives it haste. Playing it now would just expose it to a board wipe and/or give away information.
On turn 2, when faced with the choice of BTE + Bushwhacker or Gather the Pack, it's often better to cast Gather. Gather gives you the opportunity to mill into Vengevine and/or put Mandrills into your hand, for a more impactful turn 3.
When you're on 3 lands with a BTE and Gather the Pack in hand, you can play BTE followed by Gather, hope to mill Vengevine blind and reveal a 1-drop, then play the 1-drop and get Vengevine back. Of course, this carries a bit of risk since you have to commit to BTE. If you already have the 1-drop in hand or the Vengevine in the graveyard then you're less likely to whiff.
Should I play this land?
YES!
- Because I need it to cast a spell now.
- Because I need 4 mana next turn and my fourth land is Copperline Gorge.
NO!
- Because I can discard it to Looting. (It's especially tempting to play a land and cast some cheap spell immediately, but ask yourself if you REALLY need that spell now. Do you lose much by waiting one turn? What if you draw Bushwhacker?)
Generally, the deck can function on 3-4 lands. Any land beyond that should be saved as Looting discard fodder.
Should I crack this fetchland?
YES!
- Because I need to cast a spell now.
- Because I have nothing to play, and I can get a shockland tapped to save 2 life.
- Because it can enable Herbalists now.
NO!
- Because it can enable Herbalists later.
- Because I mulliganed and kept a card which I need on top.
If your hand has a fetchland, a non-fetch land, Herbalists, and Superion, clearly you'd want to play the non-fetch on turn 1 (even if you have no T1 plays), then crack the fetch on turn 2 to play Herbalists and Superion. Cracking the fetch on turn 1 for a tapped Stomping Ground leaves you unable to play T2 Herbalists into Superion.
If you mulligan down to a 1-fetchland hand and keep a land on top, don't crack the fetchland on turn 1. No turn 1 play is worth losing the guarantee of hitting your second land (even T1 Looting isn't guaranteed since cracking the fetch would randomize your deck again), unless it's to kill a Glistener Elf or something.
Should I put this Vengevine that I revealed off Gather the Pack into my hand?
YES!
- Because I have Faithless Looting or Insolent Neonate, and putting Vengevine in my hand basically negates the discard.
- Because I want to hardcast that Vengevine.
NO!
- Because I don't have Looting/Neonate.
- Because I have a Neonate, but I don't want to sac it as I need it to attack.
- Myr Superion against decks with Kolaghan's Command
- Lightning Bolt if it doesn't have good targets
- Commune with the Gods against fast decks
Board in:
- Lightning Axe against 5-toughness threats (e,g, Tasigur)
- Scavenging Ooze against fair decks
- Reclamation Sage or Seal of Primordium if you encounter an unexpected Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void. Board out Mandrills for these. I'm not expecting a lot of those since GGT recently got banned though. Just a reminder that you don't have to follow this guide to the letter.
Burn
-1 Insolent Neonate
-4 Commune with the Gods
+2 Lightning Axe
+2 Scavenging Ooze
+1 Kitchen Finks
Board in removal for Eidolon of the Great Revel, it punishes you for playing multiple spells in a turn. When delving with Mandrills, leave creatures in your graveyard for Gnaw and Ooze.
Affinity
-4 Commune with the Gods
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Seal of Primordium
+1 Reclamation Sage
Merfolk
-2 Commune with the Gods
+1 Reclamation Sage
+1 Seal of Primordium
Grixis Delver/Control
-3 Myr Superion
+3 Blood Moon
Dredge
-4 Lightning Bolt
+2 Ravenous Trap
+2 Scavenging Ooze
Infect
-4 Commune with the Gods
+2 Lightning Axe
+2 Ancient Grudge
Jund
-3 Myr Superion
+2 Lightning Axe
+1 Scavenging Ooze
Abzan
-4 Insolent Neonate
-1 Faithless Looting
+3 Blood Moon
+2 Lightning Axe
Mandrills' trample is good against Lingering Souls. They have tramplers of their own (Grim Flayer and Siege Rhino), so take out Neonate.
Jeskai
-4 Lightning Bolt
+3 Blood Moon
+1 Kitchen Finks
Bant Eldrazi
-4 Insolent Neonate
-1 Faithless Looting
+3 Blood Moon
+2 Lightning Axe
Abzan Company
-1 Myr Superion
-4 Commune with the Gods
+2 Lightning Axe
+2 Scavenging Ooze
+1 Reclamation Sage
Board in removal for Eidolon of Rhetoric.
Gx Tron
-4 Lightning Bolt
-1 Gather the Pack
+3 Blood Moon
+1 Fulminator Mage
+1 Ancient Grudge
(GR: -1 more Gather the Pack, +1 more Ancient Grudge; GW: -1 Hooting Mandrills, +1 Seal of Primordium)
Myr Superion survives Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, but dies to World Breaker. GW has better grave hate (Rest in Peace), but dies harder to Blood Moon.
RG Valakut
-4 Lightning Bolt
+3 Blood Moon
+1 Fulminator Mage
Ad Nauseam
-4 Lightning Bolt
-1 Gather the Pack
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Seal of Primordium
+1 Reclamation Sage
+1 Blood Moon
You can't interact with the combo, but you can slow it down by blowing up the artifact mana and Phyrexian Unlife.
Lantern Control
-4 Lightning Bolt
+2 Ancient Grudge
+1 Seal of Primordium
+1 Reclamation Sage
Board in all your artifact removal to beat Ensnaring Bridge. The Lantern lock is quite ineffective against Faithless Looting and all the look-at-top-5 cards.
RW Prison
-2 Lightning Bolt
+1 Reclamation Sage
+1 Seal of Primordium
Board in enchantment removal not so much for Blood Moon and Chalice of the Void, but for Journey to Nowhere and Banishing Light.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Right now I'm looking for cards which add to the synergy of the deck. The 2-drop slot is open to optimization. Satyr Wayfinder is usually the worst T2 ender after a BTE/Herbalists chain unless it results in Vengevine coming back, but it has its uses as a creature and a land finder. I'm trying out a 2/2 Wayfinder/Commune with the Gods split.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
A problem is, that we got only 8 discard outlets and 8 Cards that should go to the grave.
Agressive 2-Drops includes:
Don't miss the fact that Undying or persist Creatures do trigger Prized Amalgam when they die.
I also thought about splashing black for Gravecrawler and Gurmag Angler.
Green @ it's best
But it could potentially include Amalgams.
Whereas my ideas are a bit crazy, this one looks much more promising:
I mean it's potential Turn 3 kill with even mediocre hands at least.
Green @ it's best
I don't think you can play Aether Hub in this deck. This deck wants to play a spell every turn, and most of its sequences are pretty color-intensive - BTE is double R/G, and anything + Bushwhacker is at least RR or RG. Hub provides colored mana only once, and if you use it that way, it doesn't provide energy for Rampager. I know you can cast Rampager to make energy for Hub, but at that point Hub is basically Unknown Shores that takes in green instead of colorless.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Kinda like an upgraded Gruul Zoo, with a bit more comboish approach.
Do you think it'll be competitive?
Green @ it's best
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
This deck is sweet, and I look forward to playing it!
What does Wild Cantor do?
- Enable revolt
- Store mana
- Cast Superion if you draw 2
- Cheap (or free) creature for Vengevine
You can't cast Superion reliably with 4 Wild Cantor. As a cheap/free creature it's not quite as good as the other options; Neonate has evasion and Mandrills is big and has trample. The other free creatures don't sac themselves, so they can pick up Bushwhacker boosts.
I can't think of a card I would cut for Wild Cantor. Bolt is the least synergistic card in the deck, but a solid non-synergistic card is still better than a weak synergistic card (even after considering all the things it enables).
This deck is definitely sweet, I look forward to seeing you 5-0 a League with it!
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| Infect
Big Johnny.
BGRDredgevineBGR
UWRJeskai ControlUWR
Pauper:
GMono-Green AggroG
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Check it out for the latest testing, gameplay, and dailies!
- Hidden Herbalists, the latest addition, gives you more chances at a T2 Myr Superion. Previously the deck used Priest of Urabrask and Simian Spirit Guide (SSG can't actually pay for Superion, it pays for a T2 Priest which then makes Superion-usable mana). Not only is it harder to get the combo of SSG + Priest compared to fetchland + Herbalists, playing SSG made you hemorrhage CA at an alarming rate with it and Looting in the same deck. Herbalists also has slightly better combat stats than Priest.
- Gather the Pack. Along with cutting SSG, this makes you not run out of cards as fast.
- Insolent Neonate. It's not as critical in this deck compared to Dredge because you don't have dredgers to discard, but it serves another function and that's to enable Herbalists. You don't sac it as quickly as in Dredge, but that's fine - a 1/1 menace (2/1 with Bushwhacker) is still chip damage.
- Reckless Bushwhacker. Vs Goblin Bushwhacker, you can actually cast it off BTE mana without resorting to Manamorphose. On 3 lands you can also play Herbalists + Mandrills + Reckless Bushwhacker, which would be impossible with ordinary Goblin Bushwhacker.
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| Infect
Big Johnny.
http://mtgtop8.com/compare?l=_273471_226214_226190_
The main changes are:
Goblin Guide -> Insolent Neonate. Guide is a nice aggro creature, but Neonate has much more utility.
Priest of Urabrask -> Hidden Herbalists. This lets you cut SSG as well.
Goblin Bushwhacker -> Reckless Bushwhacker. Lets you cut Manamorphose.
In general, you play much fewer "third wheel" cards than before (SSG and Manamorphose). Instead of needing Priest + SSG + Superion to put Superion out on turn 2, now you just need Herbalists + Superion (+ fetchland, but those are easy to come by). Instead of BTE + Manamorphose + Goblin Bushwhacker, you just need BTE + Reckless Bushwhacker. Your hands are more stable, since the deck is now a bunch of 2-card combos instead of 3-card combos. In place of the "third wheel" cards, you have the opportunity to add consistency tools like Commune with the Gods and Gather the Pack. They're not quite Ancient Stirrings, more like Peer Through Depths, but Peer is still a decent card regardless.
I don't recommend mulliganing too hard with this deck though. I'll keep any 1-land hand that has a red land and Looting. The harder you mulligan, the more likely you are to end up with a hand where none of the combinations work.
I don't recommend putting "third wheels" back into the deck either - by that I mean cards like Manamorphose, Mishra's Bauble or Memnite (funny how they all start with "M" ). Commune or Gather digging into BTE solves basically all problems that those cards would. Either that, or they'll end up digging into some other card that renders the initial problem irrelevant.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Oath is cheaper and can get you lands, as an enchantment it can also be found by Commune with the Gods if it comes up.
Also with enough fetches in the deck won't Lotus Cobra be a good ramp option which can also pay for Myr Superion (and cast of BTE/Hidden Herbalists) ?
Another creature that combo's with BTE/HH is Talara's Battalion, but with Hooting Mandrills in the deck it is probably not that necessary.
-Enables Revolt
-Easily cast before a bushwhacker (though I get it won't attack)
-Is a creature and therefore can be gotten with Commune/Gather
-Beats Chalice when all other artifact destruction is cmc=2
I keep coming back to this thread with small thoughts, but I just love the deck, and it's killing me to wait until 1/25.
I've goldfished the deck quite sometime (30+ Matches now) and it's tough decision-wisely.
Until Turn 4 i can deal 12-17 damage at average, Turn 4 is lethal almost every time.
A real nut-draw is quite rare - but maybe my expectations and intentions are too high regarding the 1-turn-blowout potential of this deck.
It's a whole lot of fun already, very tight decision-wise and has a great potential to become the better Gruul Zoo.
Green @ it's best
Lotus Cobra sounds reasonable, but I can't think of what I'd cut. Definitely not Herbalists, as they let you play a turn 2 Superion while Cobra doesn't. It might work if you changed the build slightly for Tracker's Instincts, since that gives you a mana sink to use Cobra mana on, and Cobra can produce blue for flashback. Maybe -4 Commune, -1 Mandrills, -1 Mountain, +3 Instincts, +2 Cobra, +1 Steam Vents?
Talara's Battalion is mostly just a worse Myr Superion. Greenwheel Liberator is arguably easier to play as a 4/3 and I don't even think that's good enough. I want free 2/2 and 4/3s, or 2-mana 5/6s. Not 2-mana 4/3s
Ingot Chewer seems worse than Ancient Grudge. If you Commune and reveal creature + Grudge, you can put the creature in hand and have Grudge in the GY for flashback. With creature + Chewer, you only get one of the two. I know it's better against Cage and Chalice, but the question is whether being able to beat those two specifically is worth more than Grudge's all-around efficiency. This deck can certainly beat a Cage without removing it from the board - Mandrills and Superion will see to that. And Chalice on 2 costs 4, so you're still good if you dump all your creatures on the board before then.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
It's just a matter of budget constraint.
Green @ it's best
1) The ability to explode on turn 2. This randomly gives you free wins and lets you sneak under hate.
2) The ability to play a long game. This isn't your ordinary aggro deck where board wipe = GG. Vengevine keeps coming back and Gather the Pack is like Thoughtcast or Lead the Stampede.
Is this deck comparable to Dredgevine? Well, they both play Vengevine. And they both have a big 2-drop (Lotleth Troll and Myr Superion). And they both have delve creatures (Gurmag Angler and Hooting Mandrills). The difference is that your engine is Commune + Gather instead of Stinkweed Imp + Golgari Thug (RIP Grave-Troll). Also, you only play 2 colors compared to Dredgevine's 3, so the mana is smoother (no R on turn 1 followed by BG on turn 2) and you get to play Blood Moon for free wins.
Is it resilient? Yes, Vengevine and Gather the Pack. You can also beat grave hate without removing it from the board.
Is the deck challenging to pilot? It's going to vary based on the amount of experience you have playing similar decks. This deck has a combo element in it, so sequencing matters. If you crack a fetch too early or play an extra BTE instead of keeping it in hand, you might lose the game because you can't cast Herbalists with revolt, or Superion off the BTE. I went through a few examples in the first post.
BTW, Myr Superion is under $2 in paper. You don't have much to lose even if it doesn't pan out
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| Infect
Big Johnny.