I wanted the full playset of Selfless, but couldn't figure out what I wanted to cut for it. However, your comments on Kira vs Eidolon seem really sound and I think I'm going to make that change to see how it plays. This should also let me fit the 4th Selfless in too.
I love the maindeck Eidolons. (The salt from storm players G1 tastes so sweet!) But in reality, they play so well with the tempo plan. If I stick an Eidolon then I can typically counter each play my opponent tries to make while still advancing my board. Aether Vial is also great to break the synergy.
The 2 Curious Obsessions are a test-slot and a throwback to my first list which ran 4. I really liked them and they definitely let me run away with some games, but I think a playset is far too much. These get pulled against the various removal.decs for obvious card disadvantage reasons. Echoing Truth is there as a catch-all, but is probably a mistake. I just really hate Lilis and Bridges.
I've had great success with the 2/2 Path/Snag split as I enjoy being able to leverage the Snags on my own creatures for unexpected plays and value.
The 3 Phantasmal Images have been great, which is a pleasant surprise as when I ran a playset I hated seeing them. I was often pulling Images with no spirits to copy and that felt bad. 3 feels like a good spot and it certainly feels good getting the T3 Drogskol+Image "lock".
Sideboard is constantly changing, but this is the current iteration. The astute observer will notice one Watery Grave in the maindeck and that is solely there to get Explosives to 3 if needed. Also Island + Plains + Mountain (when under bloodmoon) is a nice answer. Trying out Kira and Disenchant as new slots, and the Sorcerous has been nice against Tron and Last Hope Lili's. The 4 Counterspells help shore up the Big Mana matches which feel abysmal.
I may end up swapping the Curious Obsessions back to Remands. We'll see how things go.
Fair call on Blood Moon, when I can find a couple I'll be running them for sure.
Thanks for all the input on the Abbot of Keral Keep, seems like a good fit and I'll be running two of him for a bit.
I'd be curious to hear your sideboarding strategy versus the big decks, sjcelvis, and how you find the matchups.
For the Tron matchup, you need two things to win: 1) a fast clock, and 2) they screw up.
1) A fast clock pretty much means Norin+Champion or Norin+Sister+Pridemate. Genesis Chamber may work but they have Pyroclasm.
2) Ghost Quarter helps. Sometimes they only got one Karn, Liberated and you have two big dudes, or Genesis Chamber. Sometimes you path their only Wurmcoil Engine. But that's about it.
Brave the Elements
Oh god I totally missed Path to Exile and Dismember. I generally don't mind Path to Exile though as it ramps me up to my 4-drops. I dont mind 1-2 in my sideboard if I have slots.
This card is only playable if you play Ajani's Pridemate.
edit: I guess there's also Vapor Snag. Now it is getting better.
I wonder if Sowing Salt as a 1-Of in the board would help here, but it might be too slow. I suppose it could also grab Inkmoth Nexus away from Affinity/Infect, but it's probably too over-costed/narrow.
I've actually run into a few Izzet Staticasters and a Molten Vortex or two on occasion, but Grim Lavamancer can be found in a few decks (Burn, URx Delver, etc), so he's the real (popular) threat.
I saw Abbot of Keral Keep listed in your previous posts, has he really performed that well? I can understand the CA late, but how do you sequence him early, and how many do you run? I was thinking 2, pulling out 1 Lightning Berserker and 1 Sister.
I'm guessing you'd drop the Abbot T2 if you only had 2 Lands in play, and none in hand, and hold him till T3 when you do have a 3rd Land in hand in case you hit a 1-Drop. Is this correct?
I'd be really curious to hear how testing goes with the Soulfire Grandmaster. I'm currently running a lower spell count in my deck, but if he pulls as much weight as it looks like he has the potential for, I'd love to hear about it.
I'm currently trying to find a middle ground between Soul Sisters to stabilize and make myself difficult to kill and adding Impact Tremors and Lightning Berserker to really ensure I am triggering all the good stuff in this deck.
The land base is definitely budget as I am just getting into the format and don't have any of the staples. Shelling out for some Cavern of Souls though, because those seriously make life so much easier. Ghost Quarters have been interesting... Threw them in for Tron, but it's still hopelessly one-sided. Will need to test them more to see if they are worth it; I'm sure I'd rather run Blood Moon, but again, budget. So far it's been very consistent that I see a mix of 2-3 Impact Tremors/Genesis Chamber (and these play very nice with each other) by Turn 4 or 5 and either Norin the Wary or Lightning Berserker (often both) along with sisters/champs. The downside is I have a lot less interaction with my opponent, but so far the consistency of assembling combo pieces has been worth it.
Still trying to find a SB that I'm happy with, but so far the all star is definitely Mark of Asylum. My biggest concern typically is the opponent having the ability to ping Norin, and Mark stops it cold, while also blanking basically all red removal (which is popular in my URx Delver flooded meta). Just pretend like all your creatures have half of Auriok Champion's ability, and that's kind of what it's like. Celestial Purge is in testing to deal with pesky Walkers. The weakest has been Suppression Field, but it seems so good in theory... still testing and not sure what else I'd put in the board. Suggestions?
Also considering adding another silver bullet 1-Drop or two to fetch with Ranger of Eos, but options don't seem great. A quick search pulled up these for me, sort of arranged in order of appeal:
Has anyone run with any of these? What were your thoughts? I could see Dragonmaster Outcaster doing wonders if it ever goes off, but I figure at that late in the game, we should be out-grinding our opponents anyway. Grim Lavamancer seems like the highest utility option, especially with my lower spell count. If anyone has experience with this in particular I'd love to hear it. And Burrenton Forge-Tender has been mentioned a couple times here, can anyone share some stories of how well this card worked or didn't?
I wouldn't mind swapping out that lone Brave the Elements for a 3rd Boros Charm. You haven't run into any situations where Brave the Elements would have saved you when Boros Charm did not? I always get confused about which cards protect from which effects.
Another use for Brave the Elements is that it can protect from targeted exile effects, namely Path to Exile which hurts far more than having our cards hit the yard, because at least then we have a chance to recur them with Return to the Ranks. Boros Charm is definitely more versatile and likely to be better in most cases, but if your meta runs a lot of Path effects, it could be beneficial. Maybe in the SB to swap with your Charms in those matchups.
I stumbled upon this deck a short while ago and have been quite taken by it. It's a ton of fun and something completely different from what I normally see at my LGS. I've been playing around and testing it on cockatrice against some more common lists like Affinity and Twin and have done decently. One deck I cannot seem to touch however, is BW Tokens. Does anyone have any experience or insight for this matchup? It seems that as soon as Sorin hits the field they stabilize and become untouchable from the +1/0 Lifelink every turn. That and the early discard hurts and pathing a Champion of the Parish or Ajani's Pridemate later on really hurts as I can't pull them back with Return to the Ranks.
Here's what I'm currently testing, and if some slots seem strange (2x Fling, 2x Dismember) that's either because they are and I'm curious how they interact (Fling in response to removal, if being continually chumped, or for the last bit of damage), or they are fillers for other cards (Dismember in place of Path to Exile, since I only have a single copy at the moment).
The Ratchet Bomb in the SB was to try and combat the BW Tokens matchup, and Brave the Elements to combat decks that run Paths or Bounce effects, and to get past blockers. Again, in the process of trying and testing a lot of cards out to see how they work. Currently, it feels like I'm too heavy on the spells, but I'm not sure what else I'd put back in. Maybe some Impact Tremors for more damage or Spirit Bonds to help against flyers.
Looking forward to what you all might think, and I will post back more as I get more chances to test it.
Ever since Sidisi, Brood Tyrant was spoiled I've been looking at cards to use with her as an EDH General, and this thread has been an awesome find. Here are my thoughts:
Another notable card if you are playing mostly from your graveyard, and forgive me if it's been mentioned already, would be Body Double as it can be any one of your combo creatures if they've been dumped. Additionally any "Return target artifact from graveyard to hand/battlefield" cards are good here as well if you mill away a key card, especially if they have a body as at worst case they can function as zombie fuel. Myr Retriever comes to mind.
One of the things I like about Sidisi, Brood Tyrant is that she doesn't seem too threatening at first, and while she's assembling the combo/win she provides blockers. Round out the deck with a tidy removal/control suite and I think she could be quite fun to play.
Anyways this is my current approach for building her; can't wait to see what other lists start showing up and what other cards we'll get from Khans.
4 Aether Vial
Creatures
4 Mausoleum Wanderer
4 Rattlechains
3 Selfless Spirit
3 Phantasmal Image
4 Drogskol Captain
4 Spell Queller
4 Nebelgast Herald
2 Eidolon of Rhetoric
Spells
2 Curious Obsession
1 Echoing Truth
2 Path to Exile
2 Vapor Snag
1 Adarkar Wastes
4 Flooded Strand
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Hallowed Fountain
2 Island
2 Moorland Haunt
1 Plains
4 Seachrome Coast
1 Watery Grave
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner
2 Rest In Peace
2 Stony Silence
1 Disenchant
2 Mana Leak
2 Negate
1 Settle the Wreckage
I love the maindeck Eidolons. (The salt from storm players G1 tastes so sweet!) But in reality, they play so well with the tempo plan. If I stick an Eidolon then I can typically counter each play my opponent tries to make while still advancing my board. Aether Vial is also great to break the synergy.
The 2 Curious Obsessions are a test-slot and a throwback to my first list which ran 4. I really liked them and they definitely let me run away with some games, but I think a playset is far too much. These get pulled against the various removal.decs for obvious card disadvantage reasons. Echoing Truth is there as a catch-all, but is probably a mistake. I just really hate Lilis and Bridges.
I've had great success with the 2/2 Path/Snag split as I enjoy being able to leverage the Snags on my own creatures for unexpected plays and value.
The 3 Phantasmal Images have been great, which is a pleasant surprise as when I ran a playset I hated seeing them. I was often pulling Images with no spirits to copy and that felt bad. 3 feels like a good spot and it certainly feels good getting the T3 Drogskol+Image "lock".
Sideboard is constantly changing, but this is the current iteration. The astute observer will notice one Watery Grave in the maindeck and that is solely there to get Explosives to 3 if needed. Also Island + Plains + Mountain (when under bloodmoon) is a nice answer. Trying out Kira and Disenchant as new slots, and the Sorcerous has been nice against Tron and Last Hope Lili's. The 4 Counterspells help shore up the Big Mana matches which feel abysmal.
I may end up swapping the Curious Obsessions back to Remands. We'll see how things go.
Excellent stuff, thanks for the reply!
Thanks for all the input on the Abbot of Keral Keep, seems like a good fit and I'll be running two of him for a bit.
I'd be curious to hear your sideboarding strategy versus the big decks, sjcelvis, and how you find the matchups.
Noted. Seems much better, I'll have to snag one or two.
I wonder if Sowing Salt as a 1-Of in the board would help here, but it might be too slow. I suppose it could also grab Inkmoth Nexus away from Affinity/Infect, but it's probably too over-costed/narrow.
Nice call on Vapor Snag, missed that one, and I would agree Brave the Elements becomes far more useful/necessary with Ajani's Pridemates.
I've actually run into a few Izzet Staticasters and a Molten Vortex or two on occasion, but Grim Lavamancer can be found in a few decks (Burn, URx Delver, etc), so he's the real (popular) threat.
I saw Abbot of Keral Keep listed in your previous posts, has he really performed that well? I can understand the CA late, but how do you sequence him early, and how many do you run? I was thinking 2, pulling out 1 Lightning Berserker and 1 Sister.
I'm guessing you'd drop the Abbot T2 if you only had 2 Lands in play, and none in hand, and hold him till T3 when you do have a 3rd Land in hand in case you hit a 1-Drop. Is this correct?
I'm currently trying to find a middle ground between Soul Sisters to stabilize and make myself difficult to kill and adding Impact Tremors and Lightning Berserker to really ensure I am triggering all the good stuff in this deck.
Here's my current list:
4x Norin the Wary
4x Lightning Berserker
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Soul's Attendant
2x Soul Warden
2x Auriok Champion
2x Ranger of Eos
1x Purphoros, God of the Forge
1x Legion Loyalist
Spells: (6)
3x Lightning Bolt
2x Boros Charm
1x Path to Exile
4x Genesis Chamber
4x Impact Tremors
2x Outpost Siege
Land: (20)
4x Battlefield Forge
2x Cavern of Souls
2x Ghost Quarter
6x Mountain
6x Plains
3x Wear // Tear
2x Celestial Purge
2x Return to the Ranks
2x Mark of Asylum
2x Rest in Peace
2x Stony Silence
2x Suppresion Field
The land base is definitely budget as I am just getting into the format and don't have any of the staples. Shelling out for some Cavern of Souls though, because those seriously make life so much easier. Ghost Quarters have been interesting... Threw them in for Tron, but it's still hopelessly one-sided. Will need to test them more to see if they are worth it; I'm sure I'd rather run Blood Moon, but again, budget. So far it's been very consistent that I see a mix of 2-3 Impact Tremors/Genesis Chamber (and these play very nice with each other) by Turn 4 or 5 and either Norin the Wary or Lightning Berserker (often both) along with sisters/champs. The downside is I have a lot less interaction with my opponent, but so far the consistency of assembling combo pieces has been worth it.
Still trying to find a SB that I'm happy with, but so far the all star is definitely Mark of Asylum. My biggest concern typically is the opponent having the ability to ping Norin, and Mark stops it cold, while also blanking basically all red removal (which is popular in my URx Delver flooded meta). Just pretend like all your creatures have half of Auriok Champion's ability, and that's kind of what it's like. Celestial Purge is in testing to deal with pesky Walkers. The weakest has been Suppression Field, but it seems so good in theory... still testing and not sure what else I'd put in the board. Suggestions?
Also considering adding another silver bullet 1-Drop or two to fetch with Ranger of Eos, but options don't seem great. A quick search pulled up these for me, sort of arranged in order of appeal:
1 Grim Lavamancer
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
1 Kami of False Hope
1 Serra Ascendant
1 Kytheon, Hero of Akros
1 Signal Pest
Has anyone run with any of these? What were your thoughts? I could see Dragonmaster Outcaster doing wonders if it ever goes off, but I figure at that late in the game, we should be out-grinding our opponents anyway. Grim Lavamancer seems like the highest utility option, especially with my lower spell count. If anyone has experience with this in particular I'd love to hear it. And Burrenton Forge-Tender has been mentioned a couple times here, can anyone share some stories of how well this card worked or didn't?
Thanks guys, loving this deck.
Another use for Brave the Elements is that it can protect from targeted exile effects, namely Path to Exile which hurts far more than having our cards hit the yard, because at least then we have a chance to recur them with Return to the Ranks. Boros Charm is definitely more versatile and likely to be better in most cases, but if your meta runs a lot of Path effects, it could be beneficial. Maybe in the SB to swap with your Charms in those matchups.
Edit: Brave the Elements also protects against Dismember
Here's what I'm currently testing, and if some slots seem strange (2x Fling, 2x Dismember) that's either because they are and I'm curious how they interact (Fling in response to removal, if being continually chumped, or for the last bit of damage), or they are fillers for other cards (Dismember in place of Path to Exile, since I only have a single copy at the moment).
4 Norin the Wary
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Ajani's Pridemate
4 Soul's Attendant
3 Soul Warden
2 Ranger of Eos
1 Legion Loyalist
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
Spells (11)
2 Fling
2 Dismember
2 Return to the Ranks
2 Boros Charm
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Path to Exile
4 Genesis Chamber
2 Outpost Siege
Land (20)
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Clifftop Retreat
9 Plains
3 Mountain
3 Wear // Tear
2 Stony Silence
2 Rest in Peace
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Electrickery
2 Mark of Asylum
2 Brave the Elements
I initially ran 4x Impact Tremors and 2-3x Mentor of the Meek, but have swapped those for Purphoros, God of the Forge and Outpost Siege after reading through this thread. So far I am loving the Outpost Siege over the Mentor of the Meek as he would often be removed immediately and not draw anything.
The Ratchet Bomb in the SB was to try and combat the BW Tokens matchup, and Brave the Elements to combat decks that run Paths or Bounce effects, and to get past blockers. Again, in the process of trying and testing a lot of cards out to see how they work. Currently, it feels like I'm too heavy on the spells, but I'm not sure what else I'd put back in. Maybe some Impact Tremors for more damage or Spirit Bonds to help against flyers.
Looking forward to what you all might think, and I will post back more as I get more chances to test it.
I've been trying to build more of a Combo and Graveyard based strategy; namely flipping my library upside down (often repeatedly, if you have Eldrazi Titans or Gaea's Blessing, or similar) for hordes of zombies into a Dread Return into Craterhoof Behemoth. The Cephalid Illusionist + Any 0 Equip cost mentioned earlier works well for this. To my knowledge only 3 such equipment cards exist, Lightning Greaves, Shuko, and Umbral Mantle, and I think a case can be made to include all of them. Lightning Greaves is solid in it's own right, Shuko is definitely the weakest, but can easily be tutored for via Trinket Mage, and Umbral Mantle can go infinite with Krosan Restorer or Viridian Joiner (Who would also produce infinite green mana) as a two-piece Basalt Monolith to be used in conjunction with Mesmeric Orb, and additionally a milling win-con with Altar of Dementia since Umbral Mantle will pump the creatures as well.
Another notable card if you are playing mostly from your graveyard, and forgive me if it's been mentioned already, would be Body Double as it can be any one of your combo creatures if they've been dumped. Additionally any "Return target artifact from graveyard to hand/battlefield" cards are good here as well if you mill away a key card, especially if they have a body as at worst case they can function as zombie fuel. Myr Retriever comes to mind.
One of the things I like about Sidisi, Brood Tyrant is that she doesn't seem too threatening at first, and while she's assembling the combo/win she provides blockers. Round out the deck with a tidy removal/control suite and I think she could be quite fun to play.
Anyways this is my current approach for building her; can't wait to see what other lists start showing up and what other cards we'll get from Khans.