Quote from Priest of StoneOk you did it. I hate the set too. Happy now?
To be fair I'm trying to be impartial and objective with my review and I'm not actively trying to cast the set in a negative light. Still, I'm not one to hold back and I'm certainly going to call a spade a spade. If I explain that don't think that a card is good for X, Y and Z reasons then you can bet that I believe that what I'm saying is "true." I'm not just doing it to be an ******* :P.
Still, it's worth noting that the only reason why I hate multicolor sets is because I personally like playing mono-Black decks more than anything else. It has nothing to do with card quality/power and there are certainly some powerful ones in DGM. My only real recurring criticism is that most of the cards in the set are very expensive, very vulnerable and actively induce removal. The cards are all fair and I'm sure that some of them are fun but I mean you don't need me to tell you that. Every big flashy card is arguably fun after all. Rather, I'm trying to dig for the hidden gems and legitimate bombs that are cool, fun and powerful. That is, I like cards that win me games in addition to being complete ballers.
Yes. You can choose how the triggers are stacked at EOT to ensure that the ETB creatures re-enter before the Priest does. Stack the Priest first, then everything else, everything else will ETB and then finally the Priest will come back in. Also works with Flickerwisp.
Note that if you're also exiling opposing threats you want to stack like:
1) All opposing threats,
2) Containment Priest,
3) Your other threats.
Stack resolves in reverse order so you get your threats back, then your Containment Priest comes back, then their stuff stays exiled.
I almost always include a 7+ CMC bomb in my decks so yeah, I would. I'm not saying that it's right/necessary/needed but MP games typically go long and I find that I'm routinely able to cast them.
I find E.Witness to be a supremely overrated Magic card and I rarely play her outside of EDH. I especially hate her in decks w/o Fetches because I find that her most common mode is as a Borderland Ranger on turn 3. Personally I wouldn't bother with her, but she's obviously a fine Magic card in blink decks so you could do worse. I prefer Flickerwisp in Slide though.
For anyone else looking to build the deck I'll stress that it still works with Wasteland Strangler because with Loam you can often set up scenarios where you're Sliding a Strangler and 1-2 other threats every turn and you can stack it so that a small creature comes back first, then your Strangler and then you use your Strangler to "eat" the third threat while it's still in exile in order to kill the first creature that came back.
You won't need 4 Priests and Stranglers since that's overkill. I'd start with Priests and add Stranglers as needed. I'd also add at least 2x Astral Slide for redundancy on that effect. I wouldn't even bother with Painful Truths because Loam and Drift are your primary card advantage engines.
9x Island
7x Plains
4x Glacial Fortress
4x Terramorphic Expanse
Spells (36)
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Swords to Plowshares
2x Portent
4x Predict
2x Counterspell
1x Rest in Peace
1x Disenchant
1x Damping Sphere
1x Sphinx's Revelation
1x Back to Basics
1x Entreat the Angels
4x Smothering Tithe
1x Summary Dismissal
4x Terminus
1x Approach of the Second Sun
Maybe something like this?
1. Whisperwood Elemental is solid if you can find room for him. Not needed by any means though.
2. More turn 1 ramp spells and Mastery of The Unseen. All of your good hands with have a turn 1 Elf and ideally a turn 2 Scroll but since the deck only has 4 of them you want to mull for those as opposed to the Elves.
3. Selesnya Sanctuary, Myriad Landscape, Castle Vantress and Gavony Township are all decent.
4. Mastery of The Unseen is fantastic in these shells and isn't hard to splash.
5. Too fair. It plays Magic but I wouldn't expect it to win many games.
6. No; don't bother with Crystal Shard. There's better things to be doing in these shells.
7. Mastery of The Unseen is all the healing that you'll ever need.
8. Ixidron
Screw Willbender. That card is abysmal. Stratus Dancer is a real Magic card because it hits things like Wraths, Exsanguinates, Expropriates, Cyclonic Rifts, etc. I would always play 4 of them before turning to Willbender.
16x Return of the Wildspeaker bought at 25 cents, selling for 65 cents
16x Gadwick, the Wizened bought at 35 cents, selling for 78 cents
8x Castle Locthwain bought at $1.29, selling for $5.20
8x Faeburrow Elder bought at 49 cents, selling for 94 cents.
Paid: $29.84
Buylisted: $72.00
Profit: $42.16
Since these are some of the cards that I've previously discussed. I'm probably going to get dinged on some of the card for quality so it'll probably be closer to $35.00 after shipping and reductions but it's still a decent payout. This isn't a brag post or anything; I want to show how you can play the game "cheaply" if you take advantage of these kinds of opportunities. $35.00 doesn't pay for my entire purchases obviously but it comes very close. It means that I can buy things like:
20x Arcum's Astrolabe for $5.00
8x Tymaret Calls the Dead for $2.00
8x The Cauldron of Eternity for $7.92
8x Treacherous Blessing for $3.12
4x Woe Strider for $5.16
4x Endling for $2.00
And even after shipping I'm still in the black. I'm going to toss in some other specs so that I can keep the chain going for Ikoria but I'm also sitting on things like 8x Phyrexian Altars that I bought for $15.99 per that I could already ship back for $21.45 and Extended Art Castle Lochwains bought for $10.00 that could be sold for $13.00. I'd like to get more for these however so I'll see what I can get for them next time. It takes a bit of time and energy but it's decent money for not a lot of work.
4x Watery Grave
4x Godless Shrine
4x Hallowed Fountain
2x Temple of Silence
2x Temple of Enlightenment
2x Castle Vantress
2x Island
2x Plains
1x Swamp
1x Hall of Heliod's Generosity
4x Prismatic Lens
4x Omen of the Sea
2x Mycosynth Wellspring
4x Thirst for Meaning
4x Oath of Liliana
4x Doom Foretold
4x The Eldest Reborn
4x Hour of Revelation
2x Kiora Bests the Sea God
4x Dance of the Manse
Maybe something close to this? Medomai's Prophecy, The Birth of Meletis, Ichor Wellspring, etc. would also work at 2 CMC.
The Hydra is an 8/8. If you copy it twice that's already 24 damage. Why would you need to populate the tokens if the A + B combo already clears the table? My point is that you're trying way to hard to create some needlessly convoluted win-more combo when you can simply put Blade of Selves on cards like Inferno Titan and Hydra Omnivore and attack for the win. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that.
(Optional: Turn 0 Leyline of the Void) Turn 1 Cauldron Familiar, turn 2 Yarok's Fenlurker, turn 3 Ayara, First of Locthwain, turn 4 Nightmare Shepherd + tap Ayara and sac Yarok's Fenlurker at EOT, turn 5 Gray Merchant of Asphodel + tap Ayara and sac Gary. Not only is the combo effective but it's also Standard legal. You can play it vs 1 or 100 opponents or even at your local FNM.
She doesn't do that much for the literal card Field of the Dead but she's fantastic at enabling Golos, Tireless Pilgrim.
It'll never be a real deck if we're being honest. It's certainly a fun deck though.
FWIW I'm on 4x Scroll of Fate and I think that it's the best card in the deck. I'll quickly plug cards like Den Protector and Stratus Dancer because it enables Megamorph among other things. It lets you play at instant-speed, helps you dodge Wraths and makes attacking into you almost impossible. After all, as long as it's untapped you're representing instant-speed 1 mana 12/12s. Moreover, it crushes permission and converts excess lands into useful resources. It also creates mind games where you can bluff putting useless cards into play that will still force people to play around the fact that they could easily be 12/12s. I could go on and on but suffice it to say I wouldn't consider playing fewer than 4 copies of Scroll of Fate in any versions of the archetype going forward.
It's a much better fair card. You want to support it with things like Satyr Wayfinder and Cavalier of Thorns; not Torpor Orb.
You're trying way too hard. If you attach a Blade of Selves to a Hydra Omnivore and swing for eleventy trillion damage that's typically enough to end the game.
Endless Atlas or splash Blue for cards like Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study, Manifold Insights, Verity Circle, etc. are your best bets for card draw assuming that you don't want to shell out for the classic Land Tax + Scroll Rack combo.
I also highly recommend Smothering Tithe if Finale of Glory is your primary wincon. Personally I would just play cards like Luminarch Ascension and Sigil of the Empty Throne though.
ETBs and sac outlets mostly. Viscera Seer, Zulaport Cutthroat, Priest of Forgotten Gods, Weaponcraft Enthusiast, Woe Strider, Ophiomancer, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Grave Titan, Sepulchral Primordial.
Oko, among all of the other good things that he already does, is a creature producer for Oath of Druids. It, alongside Exotic Orchard, ensures that at least one opponent will inevitably have a big enough board to continually cheat new threats into play. Fantastic card in Oath decks :).
Alternatively I would build a Mass Polymorph deck to assemble your rag-tag group of friends and abuse things like Brainstorm and See Beyond to hide the stuff that you draw. Otherwise you play token generators like Sylvan Offering to create random bodies and then Synthetic Destiny for the win. You can't do it at EOT but you can do it on the second mainphase of the opponent who acts prior to you which means that unless they have a Wrath of God you can functionally grant your team haste.