Firstly I have to tell you, I am no pro, and this is NOT some primer where you will find "the ultimate Sultai deck that beats them all". I found that very few people actually discuss block constructed, and even less people are trying to break the Sultai wedge. I personally think that the Delve ability is not too shabby, so I would like to spark a discussion, and see if we can come up with a reasonable Sultai deck that can, mayhap, show up on the decklist of some Daily Events.
The Decklist
I guess I will just show you guys a draft on the Sultai decklist first, and then move on to the discussion.
Great thanks to the_cardfather's suggestion on the decklist!
Card Discussion
Allow me to say that this is just my personal thought for now, and is likely to be wrong. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Creatures
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant - MVP, Delve enabler, provides continuous CA, allows board development without overextending. Weak combatant, only a draw against Mantis Rider, bite the dust when she(he?) starts seeing butchers and rhinos. Necropolis Fiend - Flying, can* kill Butcher of the Horde. Very good card in this deck. (spoiler: I /hug avatar) Rakshasa Deathdealer - Regenerate, can become bigger, but very mana-intensive. I am not sure of this cat(?). Sagu Mauler - Fatty, hard to remove, good against control decks. Does die to the Doom and the End. Heir of the Wilds - Mainly for stalling. Horrible topdeck(?) though. Icefeather Aven - 2 mana for a 2/2 flyer is good, but the main value comes from the flip. Give us some breathing room to move into the late game. Rakshasa Vizier - Ugh. I put it there because I want to give it a chance, to prove how good(bad) he can be.
Others - We don't want too many spells to clutter the deck because Sidisi loves creatures.
Sultai Charm - Kills monocolor creatures, removes Jeskai Ascendancy, can replace itself when not useful, put two cards into the GY for delve. Sultai Ascendancy - While standard do have Thassa, God of the Sea, our ascendancy seems the only card we can for some serious topdeck manipulation. Plus it puts cards into the GY. Can't have too many, but it will be in our 75. Murderous Cut - The question is not if it is good, but how many we want here. Villainous Wealth - This is a sideboard card I kept thinking that can give us a different win condition. I don't like Empty the Pits because we are going to delve a lot, and Empty the Pits will hit an empty pit when it does resolve. Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time - I like them a lot, but can we afford to play them? Despise - Give us information to what the opponent is holding. Remove threats that we may not be able to deal with. Disrupt the tempo play and survive longer. I guess it is a must have in our 75. Dead Drop - Capable of very explosive play, nice to have in desperate situations. Seems unplayable, but I've heard people played it with some degree of usefulness.
Matchups
I will add this part when we have a decent enough decklist.
It feels very difficult to form up this deck. Sidisi is one of the reason. It forces the deck to play a lot of creatures, but to deal with the threats from other decks, more varieties of spells will be needed. However, it seems a complete waste if a Sultai deck does not include him(her?). I am sure I am missing something, I am just not sure what it is.
I will try to keep this as update as my work and study schedule allows. Any suggestions are very much appreciated. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sidisi is the reason to play this wedge. The zombies get out of control pretty quickly. I personally like more Aven over Necropolis Fiend. I might try some counters as well, at least in the board. I think 18 to 20 creatures should be ok.
I also think Cruise or Dig has a place.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
By Aven you mean Jeskai Windscout? I haven't seen him in action but at a glance it is a bit underwhelming. I will give it a try.
Forgive me for asking, but do you mean Sidisi, Brood Tyrant fits better in a tempo shell? If so then Treasure Cruise seems a more viable choice then Dig Through Time because we aren't looking for a particular answer but just to refill some gas.
Also do we need some more bounce/tap spells to clear the coast for Sidisi?
I mean 4 Icefeather and 2 Fiend. I think you want a control shell actually. Disdainful Stroke et.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
The sideboard was just some stuff I wanted to try.
I played 5 games vs Jeskai and only won 1 when he was screwed out of blue. My suggestion to up the Avens was mostly on the desire to have another early drop, but we end up with a very greedy base that wants both GU and GB on T2. (Or you have to wait until T3 and play it as a morph). I thought about Rattleclaw Mystic in that spot since he makes 2 of our colors. It does offer a difficult to counter way to handle tokens such as Goblins and Wingmate Roc birds. I certainly could see running it in the board.
I made some adjustments dropping a bird, taking Sidisi back to 4. Scout the Borders I'm not sold on, but it seems ok when you are missing a color or don't have Sidisi. Sultai charm isn't really exciting me. It could be a board card because it handles things like Seeker of the Way, but the stuff I really want dead is multiple colors. I like Despise in that spot.
The deck seems very well positioned vs Abzan as long as you can handle Anafenza. I won a couple matches including one where my opponent had an active Sorin emblem.
Another thought I had was to splash white for Duneblast and Rhino. Funny thing was this Daily Event was actually 4-0'd by a Abzan deck splashing blue for Sultai cards.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
I have such love for Sultai Charm mainly due to my fond memories of casting Catalog in my countless U/x deck, but what you point out is valid. It is sideboard material. I also like the fact that it takes out Jeskai Ascendancy. That card gives me nightmares.
Do you think the deck would be better by going BGu? With Despise, Rakshasa Deathdealer, Debilitating Injury and Murderous Cut I would certainly think that starting with BG first is better. With blue we only have Icefeather Aven, Disdainful Stroke and Stubborn Denial, which are all very fine cards by themselves, but are also very narrow. Rattleclaw Mystic can accelerate us into the late game but is a terrible topdeck. Maybe we should focus on BG, and then splash blue for Sidisi and Treasure Cruise to refill the gas, and act like a BG Rock deck? But then we might just as well play Abzan...
What do you think of Bitter Revelation? It seems like a very powerful card, and works well with our delve mechanics. Also it only needs a single black so it is not difficult to cast. My only concern is if we are low on life then it will put us into the burn range. Is this why nobody is playing this card?
I would like to ask you, that if you do not mind, I will keep a copy of your deck on the OP too.
Bitter Revilation could go in for Scout The Borders. Dig Through Time was originally what I had in that spot but since it didn't fuel delve I wanted to try something else.
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Out of the blackness and stench of the engulfing swamp emerged a shimmering figure. Only the splattered armor and ichor-stained sword hinted at the unfathomable evil the knight had just laid waste.
I would add 4 Taigam's Scheming to the deck. The ability to put up to 6 cards into your graveyard (Taigam's Scheming + top 5 cards of deck) would really help get Sidisi, Brood Tyrant going as well as provide cards to power your delve-based spells & allow you control your draws.
I wouldn't add 4 scheming, maybe two though? They're really good if you draw one early on, and still decent later; but if you ever draw two or three in the early game you'll get rolled by card disadvantage. (Well, that's what I found playing my esper deck, anyway.) Maybe scheming is better than sultai ascendancy?
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Some facts of magic:
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
I would love to see the list come throught... If any of you guys build a version that want to test out, we can test it out against my abzan and mardu on mtgo... add me MacLlave
I tried a list kind of like Cardfather's second one. It's a blast to play. Sultai ascendancy digs like no other and solves all delve problems while Necropolis Fiend controls well late.
The best parts of blue right now are definitely the card draw like treasure cruise, but my deck would end up stabilizing around 6-7 life usually. Some thing like siege rhino would help with that a lot, so I can see why someone would just go abzan splashing treasure cruise.
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Firstly I have to tell you, I am no pro, and this is NOT some primer where you will find "the ultimate Sultai deck that beats them all". I found that very few people actually discuss block constructed, and even less people are trying to break the Sultai wedge. I personally think that the Delve ability is not too shabby, so I would like to spark a discussion, and see if we can come up with a reasonable Sultai deck that can, mayhap, show up on the decklist of some Daily Events.
The Decklist
I guess I will just show you guys a draft on the Sultai decklist first, and then move on to the discussion.
2x Heir of the Wilds
2x Sultai Soothsayer
3x Icefeather Aven
3x Rattleclaw Mystic
4x Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
2x Sagu Mauler
2x Necropolis Fiend
Spells (17)
3x Sultai Ascendancy
3x Sultai Charm
2x Murderous Cut
2x Despise
1x Empty the Pits
2x Dig Through Time
2x Cancel
2x Stubborn Denial
4x Opulent Palace
4x Polluted Delta
7x Forest
4x Island
3x Swamp
1x Jungle Hollow
2x Thornwood Fall
2x Hooded Hydra
2x Sagu Mauler
1x Villainous Wealth
1x Sultai Charm
3x Disdainful Stroke
4x Rakshasa Deathdealer
1x Dig Through Time
1x Windstorm
I know, this deck sucks, but it is a start. I will keep it updated when we make changes.
Updated 2014/11/25: Made some changes to tune the deck more control-ish.
4 Raksha Deathdealer
4 Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
4 Sagu Mauler
2 Necropolis Fiend
3 Sultai Ascendancy
3 Dispise
3 Murderous Cut
3 Disdainful Stroke
3 Debilitating Injury
2 Bitter Revelation
4 Opulent Palace
4 Polluted Delta
6 Forest
4 Swamp
3 Island
3 Jungle Hollow
1 Thornwood Falls
Great thanks to the_cardfather's suggestion on the decklist!
Card Discussion
Allow me to say that this is just my personal thought for now, and is likely to be wrong. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Creatures
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant - MVP, Delve enabler, provides continuous CA, allows board development without overextending. Weak combatant, only a draw against Mantis Rider, bite the dust when she(he?) starts seeing butchers and rhinos.
Necropolis Fiend - Flying, can* kill Butcher of the Horde. Very good card in this deck. (spoiler: I /hug avatar)
Rakshasa Deathdealer - Regenerate, can become bigger, but very mana-intensive. I am not sure of this cat(?).
Sagu Mauler - Fatty, hard to remove, good against control decks. Does die to the Doom and the End.
Heir of the Wilds - Mainly for stalling. Horrible topdeck(?) though.
Icefeather Aven - 2 mana for a 2/2 flyer is good, but the main value comes from the flip. Give us some breathing room to move into the late game.
Rakshasa Vizier - Ugh. I put it there because I want to give it a chance, to prove how good(bad) he can be.
Others - We don't want too many spells to clutter the deck because Sidisi loves creatures.
Sultai Charm - Kills monocolor creatures, removes Jeskai Ascendancy, can replace itself when not useful, put two cards into the GY for delve.
Sultai Ascendancy - While standard do have Thassa, God of the Sea, our ascendancy seems the only card we can for some serious topdeck manipulation. Plus it puts cards into the GY. Can't have too many, but it will be in our 75.
Murderous Cut - The question is not if it is good, but how many we want here.
Villainous Wealth - This is a sideboard card I kept thinking that can give us a different win condition. I don't like Empty the Pits because we are going to delve a lot, and Empty the Pits will hit an empty pit when it does resolve.
Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time - I like them a lot, but can we afford to play them?
Despise - Give us information to what the opponent is holding. Remove threats that we may not be able to deal with. Disrupt the tempo play and survive longer. I guess it is a must have in our 75.
Dead Drop - Capable of very explosive play, nice to have in desperate situations. Seems unplayable, but I've heard people played it with some degree of usefulness.
Matchups
I will add this part when we have a decent enough decklist.
It feels very difficult to form up this deck. Sidisi is one of the reason. It forces the deck to play a lot of creatures, but to deal with the threats from other decks, more varieties of spells will be needed. However, it seems a complete waste if a Sultai deck does not include him(her?). I am sure I am missing something, I am just not sure what it is.
I will try to keep this as update as my work and study schedule allows. Any suggestions are very much appreciated. Thanks for reading, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.
I also think Cruise or Dig has a place.
By Aven you mean Jeskai Windscout? I haven't seen him in action but at a glance it is a bit underwhelming. I will give it a try.
Forgive me for asking, but do you mean Sidisi, Brood Tyrant fits better in a tempo shell? If so then Treasure Cruise seems a more viable choice then Dig Through Time because we aren't looking for a particular answer but just to refill some gas.
Also do we need some more bounce/tap spells to clear the coast for Sidisi?
4x Heir of the Wilds
3x Icefeather Aven
3x Sagu Mauler
3x Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
4x Rakshasa Deathdealer
2x Necropolis Fiend
1x Pearl Lake Ancient
Spells (11)
3x Sultai Ascendancy
3x Sultai Charm
3x Murderous Cut
3x Disdainful Stroke
2x Cancel
3x Scout the Borders
4x Opulent Palace
4x Polluted Delta
6x Forest
4x Island
3x Swamp
2x Jungle Hollow
2x Thornwood Fall
1 Meandering Towershell
1 Murderous Cut
2 Villainous Wealth
4 Death Frenzy
2 Rakshasa's Secret
3 Dispise
2 Debilitating Injury
The sideboard was just some stuff I wanted to try.
I played 5 games vs Jeskai and only won 1 when he was screwed out of blue. My suggestion to up the Avens was mostly on the desire to have another early drop, but we end up with a very greedy base that wants both GU and GB on T2. (Or you have to wait until T3 and play it as a morph). I thought about Rattleclaw Mystic in that spot since he makes 2 of our colors. It does offer a difficult to counter way to handle tokens such as Goblins and Wingmate Roc birds. I certainly could see running it in the board.
I made some adjustments dropping a bird, taking Sidisi back to 4. Scout the Borders I'm not sold on, but it seems ok when you are missing a color or don't have Sidisi. Sultai charm isn't really exciting me. It could be a board card because it handles things like Seeker of the Way, but the stuff I really want dead is multiple colors. I like Despise in that spot.
The deck seems very well positioned vs Abzan as long as you can handle Anafenza. I won a couple matches including one where my opponent had an active Sorin emblem.
This is what I'll be testing next:
4 Raksha Deathdealer
4 Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
4 Sagu Mauler
2 Necropolis Fiend
3 Sultai Ascendancy
3 Dispise
3 Murderous Cut
3 Disdainful Stroke
3 Debilitating Injury
2 Scout the Borders
4 Opulent Palace
4 Polluted Delta
6 Forest
4 Swamp
3 Island
3 Jungle Hollow
1 Thornwood Falls
Another thought I had was to splash white for Duneblast and Rhino. Funny thing was this Daily Event was actually 4-0'd by a Abzan deck splashing blue for Sultai cards.
I have such love for Sultai Charm mainly due to my fond memories of casting Catalog in my countless U/x deck, but what you point out is valid. It is sideboard material. I also like the fact that it takes out Jeskai Ascendancy. That card gives me nightmares.
Do you think the deck would be better by going BGu? With Despise, Rakshasa Deathdealer, Debilitating Injury and Murderous Cut I would certainly think that starting with BG first is better. With blue we only have Icefeather Aven, Disdainful Stroke and Stubborn Denial, which are all very fine cards by themselves, but are also very narrow. Rattleclaw Mystic can accelerate us into the late game but is a terrible topdeck. Maybe we should focus on BG, and then splash blue for Sidisi and Treasure Cruise to refill the gas, and act like a BG Rock deck? But then we might just as well play Abzan...
What do you think of Bitter Revelation? It seems like a very powerful card, and works well with our delve mechanics. Also it only needs a single black so it is not difficult to cast. My only concern is if we are low on life then it will put us into the burn range. Is this why nobody is playing this card?
I would like to ask you, that if you do not mind, I will keep a copy of your deck on the OP too.
Thanks again for your sharing!
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
More facts of magic
The best parts of blue right now are definitely the card draw like treasure cruise, but my deck would end up stabilizing around 6-7 life usually. Some thing like siege rhino would help with that a lot, so I can see why someone would just go abzan splashing treasure cruise.