Haha the whole list has to be under 10 total. I could probably cut Scourge of Valkas and Past in Flames to make that happen, but both of those are pretty key, as Scourge makes Dragonstorm outright kill the table. Was just wondering if there were replacements. In that vein, I believe Goggles and Grimoire are at least a dollar.
I like the spells that return themselves because I discard often with this deck,and Kazuul and Chain Reaction cost more than their replacements.
So my playgroup decided to do a build challenge where we are going to use a regular planeswalker as our commanders.
Choices include Garruk, Apex Predator, Arlinn Kord, Tamiyo, Field Researcher, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Nissa Worldwaker, Nicol Bolas, Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, and....
Chandra Ablaze.
So I have a list, but there is another restriction we placed on the deck: It has to be 10$ budget.
So naturally I decided to make Mono-R Control/Dragonstorm Combo.
Long story short, my list is not in the 10$ range. It's probably between 13-17 (the commander and lands do not count as part of the total cost).
I need help trimming it down! Essentially the deck is based around people not actually really reading Chandra because players assume she's ***** and then I get to ultimate her and cast my graveyard for free.
The whole point of Dwarves is to crew your vehicles. That's it. The more you can maximize hitting off of Depala the easier you can recover your crew after board wipes. I'm replacing most if not all of the Dwarves you mentioned once AER dropped.
It seems like your deck might be different in goals from mine, as I don't exactly want this deck to become super-optimized. Otherwise I would include more, and I encourage you to do so. I want to see what a more optimized version of this deck can do.
And for the decklist, I kinda just threw it together for general discussion because not a lot of people appeared to be brewing around Depala, so I decided that some of my ideas were unique enough to maybe spark enough people's creativity. If there is more interest, I can clean up the decklist and try and optimize it a bit more, (now is a great time, its syllabus week at my school for me).
And the one last gem: Phyrexian Devourer.
With your commander, you can dump a whole lot of counters on your creatures, because its first ability (the one that triggers if it has power 7 or greater) can be responded to, with its OWN ABILITY. Meaning you can respond to each new instance of having power 7 or greater by exiling more cards. When you have a sufficiently large creature and with Reyhan in play, let it die. Then its counters will dump onto another target creature.
Putting these counters on Triskelion will kill the whole table given you haven't drawn half your library.
With KCI (Krark-Clan Ironworks) and Pentavus, you can make a token, sacrifice it for 2 mana, then use that two mana to continue to create a very, very large army,
Given enough tokens with Sharding Sphinx and Time Sieve, 5 tokens will get in for damage every turn allowing you to sac them all again for another turn to rinse and repeat.
In addition, Time Sieve with something like Myr Battlesphere and an unblockable Silas will also allow for infinite turns.
Modular triggers twice with Reyhan. Modular and Reyhan will both trigger, meaning sacrificing Modular creatures doubles your counters. You should add more sac outlets and Modular creatures!
Mikaeus + Sac Outlet + Triskelion/Crystalline Crawler/Mindless Automaton/Workhorse= Infinite
You don't even need sac outlets for Triskelion/Mindless Automaton/Workhorse.
Just had my first game on cockatrice, and I have a few notes: Bane of Progress can win games. Umezawa's Jitte was good, just might be a tad slow. The ability to provide reach and removal can be key though.
The manabase is still rough. I felt a disproportionate amount of my deck was white and green and consistently wanted more of both.
The sac outlets I was running were less than good. Removing some of them now. I think Sadistic Hypnotist may want to remain in but the rest outside of Viscera Seer and Hypnotist may need to go. Duskwatch Recruiter is too slow. The entire game I never activated it because the deck already has enough draw that is all better than this guy I felt.
Land Destruction was brutal. Acidic Slime and Wasteland really kept opponents on the same level as I. That along with Bane of Progress destroying mana rocks is the reason I won. Makes me want to add Life from the Loam to my list.
I need more single target removal. I feel Fiend Hunter be a good addition, because of the potential for infinite combos and because with a sac outlet, you can do some real damage on opponents' boards.
Does Volrath's Stronghold belong here? I feel like it could be very good but spending 3 mana like that seems rather expensive.....
You are probably right on the "speedbump hatebears" as we shall call them. I 'll take them out of my list. But why is Thalia so different than Glowrider that you would run one but not the other? Its not like we are running Captain Sisay to tutor any of them up, and they are both just as bad off curve. The difference on two and three on 5 lands might be important sometimes, but I rarely see that popping up. Is it because every game you plan on slamming T3 Tymna into turn 4 Kondo meaning that you would only ever play Glowrider on turn 5? I can see that I guess? Still not entirely convinced.
Though the reason I have Karmic Guide in there is twofold:
1) I want some kind of combo finisher as the game goes long, and this is one way to do just that. In addition, it is a good bit of value on its own.
2) 5 cmc- good for Birthing Pod chain. I run one in my list, and there are a few cards I put into the deck to support it that wouldn't be in the list normally (looking at you Solemn). Curving into this with Pod as a top end seems pretty good.
Mirror Entity is an easier tutor target however (Recruiter of the Guard), and scales better with Gaea's Cradle (if you decide to include it) for more activations.
I'm a little unsure on Yawgmoth's Will, what is it doing for you that Karmic Guide can't do? I can't imagine bringing back 3 or 4 creatures with it in one turn, and it doesn't exactly give you the ability to recover from wraths very well in addition to not being able to infinite....
I see your points regarding Eidolon of rhetoric and ethersworn Canonist but those cards seem really good at protecting your lead.
Also I think a deck like this may want Gaea's Cradle, could be very powerful, especially considering all the recursive dudes you have, means that you likely arr always going to have some creatures lying aroud.
I wanted to take advantage of playing so many creatures, and both Glowrider and Rhalia are great at protecting your board and slowing your opponents down in order to get a few more hits in. At least that is the idea behind them. Again, only testing will really tell if this is the casse.
Another direction I considered going wss the arustocrats direction with mass recursion like rally the ancestors. I feel a deck like that could have a lot of play to it. Might not actually be better, but maybe more fun.
Edit: Also surprised not to see Mirror Entity find its way into your list. I do like Whisperwood Elemental though. Seems good here.
With the inclusion of wraths, I'm not positive throwing in a bunch of mana dorks is going to be incredibly effective. Though I have been tempted to add in a bunch of land destruction, but I already have on deck with lots of Ld in it, and that deck isn't very well received, so.....
I want to giver her infect and then watch the world burn. Partner her with Kraum so you get to play all those sweet delve spells.
Boom.
Then she turns into Ruhan: I'm casting a giant delve spell, who wants to die? *rolls dice* Sorry Jim, its not me its her. No hard feelings. *Maniacal laughter*
Note: She's really good with instants, as she says on EACH turn, including opponent's turns.
- You need to draw a vehicle for this deck to do much. If it doesn't, many of the engines in the deck fall flat, so the deck sits there and spins wheels metaphorically, as your wheels are still in your deck. I assume we are getting more vehicle in Aether Revolt, so this isn't a huge concern right now.
- Hateflayer is a hard card to evaluate for this deck. I have cast it twice and the results were vastly different:
The first game it shone. The ability to just pay 2R: Deal 5 damage to an opponent or give a creature 5 -1/-1 counters was very powerful, and allowed me to scale into the late game with relative ease.
The second game it got countered. Spending that much mana on one threat just to have it countered felt way more backbreaking than it should have. This deck's threats are pretty undercosted being vehicles, so it felt like I lost a lot say if instead I had decided to play two 3 mana vehicles and hand one of them countered.
- Depala kinda needs to live for the deck to have draw power. I found myself sometimes casting her for as much as 7 mana just because I needed her second ability so bad. I did build the deck around it, to be fair, so that cost could be mitigated.
- This next point goes with the one above: Despite most of the threats being undercosted, the deck is actually fairly mana-hungry. If you make it to the late game, there are a lot of mana sinks in the deck that could benefit from extra mana (Depala is just one of them), and for the deck's power to scale correctly, lots of mana is needed. May want to add more mana rocks in but I also don't want to decrease the number of vehicles and dwarves, as that is where your card advantage and draw come from; the ability to those dwarves and vehicles consistently enough from Depala is why the deck can scale into the late game and one of the top reasons to play Depala.
Just some things to think about as I (and hopefuly others) continue to play and test her.
I like the spells that return themselves because I discard often with this deck,and Kazuul and Chain Reaction cost more than their replacements.
I do like Forgestoker Dragon though....
Choices include Garruk, Apex Predator, Arlinn Kord, Tamiyo, Field Researcher, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Nissa Worldwaker, Nicol Bolas, Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, and....
Chandra Ablaze.
So I have a list, but there is another restriction we placed on the deck: It has to be 10$ budget.
So naturally I decided to make Mono-R Control/Dragonstorm Combo.
Long story short, my list is not in the 10$ range. It's probably between 13-17 (the commander and lands do not count as part of the total cost).
I need help trimming it down! Essentially the deck is based around people not actually really reading Chandra because players assume she's ***** and then I get to ultimate her and cast my graveyard for free.
List:
36 Mountain
Spells (45):
1 Avacyn's Judgment
1 Cathartic Reunion
1 Coldsteel Heart
1 Collective Defiance
1 Commander's Sphere
1 Commune with Lava
1 Disaster Radius
1 Dragonstorm
1 Dreamstone Hedron
1 Earthquake
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Faithless Looting
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Fire Diamond
1 Grenzo's Rebuttal
1 Hammer of Bogardan
1 Heart of Ramos
1 Hedron Archive
1 Ignite Memories
1 Incendiary Command
1 Increasing Vengeance
1 Inner Fire
1 Loreseeker's Stone
1 Magmaquake
1 Magmatic Insight
1 Mana Geyser
1 Mana Seism
1 Mind Stone
1 Molten Disaster
1 Past in Flames
1 Punishing Fire
1 Reverberate
1 Seer's Lantern
1 Seething Song
1 Shreds of Sanity
1 Sisay's Ring
1 Sphinx-Bone Wand
1 Tormenting Voice
1 Ur-Golem's Eye
1 Vandalblast
1 Volcanic Vision
1 Volley of Boulders
1 Wild Guess
1 Wild Ricochet
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Bogardan Hellkite
1 Chandra's Phoenix
1 Deal Broker
1 Dragon Mage
1 Dream Pillager
1 Dualcaster Mage
1 Flameblast Dragon
1 Hellkite Charger
1 Hoarding Dragon
1 Imperial Hellkite
1 Runehorn Hellkite
1 Scourge of Valkas
1 Shard Phoenix
1 Skarrgan Firebird
1 Spawn of Thraxes
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Treasonous Ogre
1 Tyrant's Familiar
It seems like your deck might be different in goals from mine, as I don't exactly want this deck to become super-optimized. Otherwise I would include more, and I encourage you to do so. I want to see what a more optimized version of this deck can do.
And for the decklist, I kinda just threw it together for general discussion because not a lot of people appeared to be brewing around Depala, so I decided that some of my ideas were unique enough to maybe spark enough people's creativity. If there is more interest, I can clean up the decklist and try and optimize it a bit more, (now is a great time, its syllabus week at my school for me).
Vorel of the Hull Clade
Deepglow Skate
Doubling Season
Golgari Grave-Troll
Stinkweed Imp
Shambling Shell
Workhorse
Mindless Automaton
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Draining Whelk
Pentavus
Triskelion
Krark-Clan Ironworks
Sharding Sphinx
Birthing Pod
Experiment Kraj
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
Buried Alive
Metalworker
Hermit Druid
And the one last gem:
Phyrexian Devourer.
With your commander, you can dump a whole lot of counters on your creatures, because its first ability (the one that triggers if it has power 7 or greater) can be responded to, with its OWN ABILITY. Meaning you can respond to each new instance of having power 7 or greater by exiling more cards. When you have a sufficiently large creature and with Reyhan in play, let it die. Then its counters will dump onto another target creature.
Putting these counters on Triskelion will kill the whole table given you haven't drawn half your library.
With KCI (Krark-Clan Ironworks) and Pentavus, you can make a token, sacrifice it for 2 mana, then use that two mana to continue to create a very, very large army,
Given enough tokens with Sharding Sphinx and Time Sieve, 5 tokens will get in for damage every turn allowing you to sac them all again for another turn to rinse and repeat.
In addition, Time Sieve with something like Myr Battlesphere and an unblockable Silas will also allow for infinite turns.
Modular triggers twice with Reyhan. Modular and Reyhan will both trigger, meaning sacrificing Modular creatures doubles your counters. You should add more sac outlets and Modular creatures!
Mikaeus + Sac Outlet + Triskelion/Crystalline Crawler/Mindless Automaton/Workhorse= Infinite
You don't even need sac outlets for Triskelion/Mindless Automaton/Workhorse.
Hope I helped you get some ideas!
Bane of Progress can win games.
Umezawa's Jitte was good, just might be a tad slow. The ability to provide reach and removal can be key though.
The manabase is still rough. I felt a disproportionate amount of my deck was white and green and consistently wanted more of both.
The sac outlets I was running were less than good. Removing some of them now. I think Sadistic Hypnotist may want to remain in but the rest outside of Viscera Seer and Hypnotist may need to go.
Duskwatch Recruiter is too slow. The entire game I never activated it because the deck already has enough draw that is all better than this guy I felt.
Land Destruction was brutal. Acidic Slime and Wasteland really kept opponents on the same level as I. That along with Bane of Progress destroying mana rocks is the reason I won. Makes me want to add Life from the Loam to my list.
I need more single target removal. I feel Fiend Hunter be a good addition, because of the potential for infinite combos and because with a sac outlet, you can do some real damage on opponents' boards.
Does Volrath's Stronghold belong here? I feel like it could be very good but spending 3 mana like that seems rather expensive.....
Though the reason I have Karmic Guide in there is twofold:
1) I want some kind of combo finisher as the game goes long, and this is one way to do just that. In addition, it is a good bit of value on its own.
2) 5 cmc- good for Birthing Pod chain. I run one in my list, and there are a few cards I put into the deck to support it that wouldn't be in the list normally (looking at you Solemn). Curving into this with Pod as a top end seems pretty good.
Mirror Entity is an easier tutor target however (Recruiter of the Guard), and scales better with Gaea's Cradle (if you decide to include it) for more activations.
I'm a little unsure on Yawgmoth's Will, what is it doing for you that Karmic Guide can't do? I can't imagine bringing back 3 or 4 creatures with it in one turn, and it doesn't exactly give you the ability to recover from wraths very well in addition to not being able to infinite....
Why no Mentor of the Meek and Bygone Bishop? Too mana intensive?
EDIt: Mother of Runes has a lot of potential in a deck like this as well, any reason not to include it?
Also I think a deck like this may want Gaea's Cradle, could be very powerful, especially considering all the recursive dudes you have, means that you likely arr always going to have some creatures lying aroud.
I wanted to take advantage of playing so many creatures, and both Glowrider and Rhalia are great at protecting your board and slowing your opponents down in order to get a few more hits in. At least that is the idea behind them. Again, only testing will really tell if this is the casse.
Another direction I considered going wss the arustocrats direction with mass recursion like rally the ancestors. I feel a deck like that could have a lot of play to it. Might not actually be better, but maybe more fun.
Edit: Also surprised not to see Mirror Entity find its way into your list. I do like Whisperwood Elemental though. Seems good here.
https://deckstats.net/decks/61157/599643-sidar-tymna
A more hate-bearsy approach with a few more engines thrown in. Still don't think I have the numbers on redundant effects down yet.
Also the list above in the first post is I think 102 cards sans the Commanders? Meaning 3 need to be removed?
Really wish I had wraths in my deck. The next question is how many and which ones, to which I think the answer is 3-4, consisting of:
Austere Command, Wrath of God, Catastrophe, and Harsh Mercy.
With the inclusion of wraths, I'm not positive throwing in a bunch of mana dorks is going to be incredibly effective. Though I have been tempted to add in a bunch of land destruction, but I already have on deck with lots of Ld in it, and that deck isn't very well received, so.....
Boom.
Then she turns into Ruhan: I'm casting a giant delve spell, who wants to die? *rolls dice* Sorry Jim, its not me its her. No hard feelings. *Maniacal laughter*
Note: She's really good with instants, as she says on EACH turn, including opponent's turns.
A few things I have noticed:
- You need to draw a vehicle for this deck to do much. If it doesn't, many of the engines in the deck fall flat, so the deck sits there and spins wheels metaphorically, as your wheels are still in your deck. I assume we are getting more vehicle in Aether Revolt, so this isn't a huge concern right now.
- Hateflayer is a hard card to evaluate for this deck. I have cast it twice and the results were vastly different:
The first game it shone. The ability to just pay 2R: Deal 5 damage to an opponent or give a creature 5 -1/-1 counters was very powerful, and allowed me to scale into the late game with relative ease.
The second game it got countered. Spending that much mana on one threat just to have it countered felt way more backbreaking than it should have. This deck's threats are pretty undercosted being vehicles, so it felt like I lost a lot say if instead I had decided to play two 3 mana vehicles and hand one of them countered.
- Depala kinda needs to live for the deck to have draw power. I found myself sometimes casting her for as much as 7 mana just because I needed her second ability so bad. I did build the deck around it, to be fair, so that cost could be mitigated.
- This next point goes with the one above: Despite most of the threats being undercosted, the deck is actually fairly mana-hungry. If you make it to the late game, there are a lot of mana sinks in the deck that could benefit from extra mana (Depala is just one of them), and for the deck's power to scale correctly, lots of mana is needed. May want to add more mana rocks in but I also don't want to decrease the number of vehicles and dwarves, as that is where your card advantage and draw come from; the ability to those dwarves and vehicles consistently enough from Depala is why the deck can scale into the late game and one of the top reasons to play Depala.
Just some things to think about as I (and hopefuly others) continue to play and test her.