Has anyone tried out Simian Spirit Guide in UW?
Here's my thoughts:
One of the things that is nice about bant spirits is access to our 3 drops on t2 thanks to noble hierarch. With SSG, we can do the same thing. We can also now do something that bant can't do which is put down a 2 drop on t1, which could be super sweet with supreme phantom... something like a selfless spirit on t1 and a supreme phantom on t2! The ape isn't even a terrible top deck late if you have vial out as he is a spirit you can flash in without any red mana. I might even put a single red fetch in the deck to cast him in a pinch later in the game.
Yes, he is card disadvantage, but he is a shot in the arm for tempo and we ARE a tempo deck.
You're on the play, land, exile spirit guide, play selfless. Their turn, land bolt. Who's been tempoed out?
Yes, clearly I was tempoed out in this scenario, but if I played Selfless T2 the traditional way to see it bolted I would still be tempoed out. We know SSG is the loss of a card in most situations, that is a given, but if it can power out our creatures a turn faster or allow us to play two creatures on a turn we would normally only be able to play 1, that is tempo gain.
Now imagine this scenario. I have an opening hand that contains no cmc 1 cards and two cmc 2 spirits (maybe selfless and rattle chains) and let's say a Drogskol Captain.
Scenario 1: T1 pass, T2 rattlechains, T3 Drogskol (or maybe selfless to play more conservatively)
Scenario 2: T1 SSG into rattlechains, T2 selfless, T3 Drogskol
Now imagine our opponent has a lightning bolt in hand.
Scenario 1 leaves us with either a rattlechains or a drogskol on the board (probably the rattlechains because we didn't put enough early pressure on them to make them feel they needed to use their bolt yet).
Scenario 2 leaves us with two creatures on the battlefield instead and you probably have kept your Drogskol because your opponent saw two 2 power flyers by T2 and was pressured into bolting.
The only question to my mind is can we sacrifice a card in hand for a more explosive start? I'm not sure of the answer but I don't think you can immediately dismiss it with the whole "tempoed out by bolt" argument.
Has anyone tried out Simian Spirit Guide in UW?
Here's my thoughts:
One of the things that is nice about bant spirits is access to our 3 drops on t2 thanks to noble hierarch. With SSG, we can do the same thing. We can also now do something that bant can't do which is put down a 2 drop on t1, which could be super sweet with supreme phantom... something like a selfless spirit on t1 and a supreme phantom on t2! The ape isn't even a terrible top deck late if you have vial out as he is a spirit you can flash in without any red mana. I might even put a single red fetch in the deck to cast him in a pinch later in the game.
Yes, he is card disadvantage, but he is a shot in the arm for tempo and we ARE a tempo deck.
Personally I have yet to see a 4 drop that works in UW spirits. The best 4 drop for spirits in the format is definitely Collect Company IMO and UW would need something on that level of power to make me play a 4 drop. I didn't even like Cryptic Command in our deck, which is almost like a time-walking cantrip at times. Even though Jace is a good card, I don't think he is right for Spirits.
Hi everyone. I have been playing modern spirits for a while now. I have tested UW, Bant, and Esper versions and I am leaning toward liking UW the best (lingering souls feels clunky since you can't play at instant speed and I like the reactive play of UW over Bant).
Throwing my 2 cents in...
TheGratGig: I don't think Dungeon Geist is anywhere near as powerful as Nebelgast. Nebelgast has flash and costs 3 instead of 4. Furthermore, you will never tick your vial up to 4 when all of our best spirits are at 3, so flashing it in will only happen with rattlechains out. Also, Dungeon only triggers on its own ETB, while Nebelgast triggers on any spirit and the gas come from moorland haunt activation when you are out of spirits in hand.
StreexGeist: I liked your arguments for Collective Brutality so I tried it out and found myself always sideboarding it out. The problem I had with it primarily is that I never want to tap out for it (similar to my problem with lingering souls) and as a topdeck you are only getting 1 mode. I love the card, but not in spirits. The best card we have access to in Esper IMO is strangely enough Supernatural Stamina. Stamina makes Mausoleum Wanderer and Selfless Spirit awesome bullets, gives us a little reach, and keeps our guys alive. I also like having access to Fatal Push, but I am underwhelmed with any other black cards I have tried and so I'm leaning back toward UW for its consistency and the ability to add more moorland haunts.
The problems: I think most of us not in bant would agree that the biggest problem we face is a card draw / advantage engine, but we do seem to have a big problem in needing information on our opponents hand to properly sequence our spirits too. Esper can fix this but I already mentioned Brutality didn't seem great and I really dislike Inquisition as it is a miserable top deck and we already have enough of that problem with Aether Vial. To that end, what about the card Peek? It is a 1 mana blue cantrip that allows us to look at our opponent's hand at instant speed. I would never want more than 1 in my opening hand (I don't want to overly complicate my mulligan decision), so 2x seems right to me, but that extra infor seems like it could be relevant.
I just beat Skred although he had a blood moon out on t2, thanks to Serum Powder. About 12 turns in I drew a wastes which was destroyed after putting down a matter reshaper (my lands had been blown up earlier in the game). I then was able to cast a Serum Powder and was able to get two Reality Smashers on the board over the next two turns. Good thing too, because the first smasher was killed by my opponent (after I got an attack in). This is the first time that playing a Serum Powder in my hand has actually be useful. It felt nice.
I wouldn't really bother going with the blue build. You are running more sub-par cards: skyspawner and cultivator drone), in the hopes of getting a Elder Deep Fiend.
If you stick to that plan, you are running too many 3 drops. Cut one of them for a playset of mimics. Unfortunately, I think that without chalice, there isn't enough to lock out the elements and ride the tempo wave to victory. A turn 1 do nothing is not something a stompy deck is looking to do (ok, you have 3/4 relics, but that isn't enough). Run the 4 TKS, a turn 2 TKS can be devastating (especially if following a chalice or mimic).
Another con of mimic in your build, is that if you want to abuse Elder deep fiend, the mimic trigger would be wasted. There is another fine (not great, not bad) Emerge target, the 3/4 flier that draws a card. It is less blue intensive and flies over. There is also a blue/green that puts a permanent on top of it's owners library. Of all the creatures we have I'd be kinda happy to sacrifice the Reshapers and the eternal scourge if I'm running maindeck relics. Unfortunately, I think losing my turn 2 creature just to tap them out is basically trading my turn for one of theirs. That is awesome if we are chipping in for damage, but not that great if they are the ones with creatures.
A TKS/Reality smasher after a chalice on 1 can do a lot of work. If the opponent can just path, then it isn't as good. I'd still stick with Dismember over vapor snag.
Overall, drop the vapor snags for dismember, lose the cultivator drone, up the TKS count to 4, think hardly if you want the Elder-Deep Fiend or not (or if the build in jordan's article back when dredge was more popular is the better choice or not). Meta dependant, Relic in the main can be awesome instead of chalice. There are a few match-ups where I'd rather have relic maindeck and chalice does very little. I don't think more heavy drops are where this deck wants to be (looking at you Elder deep fiend).
If running eldrazi skyspawner, smuggler's copter starts looking better.
Thanks for the feedback. I think you are right that dismember is just better than Vapor Snag, although I do like that snag offers a tiny bit of reach and can be used on my own elder-deep fiend. I agree that TKS is awesome on T2, but the problem my deck has is powering him out that early. I either need a double temple hand or I need to be on the draw, use Gemstone, and have a temple. That seems a lot less likely than playing a t2 Eldrazi Drone and then a t3 Reality Smasher, but I could be wrong about that I suppose. I do agree that mimic is pretty important... especially on the T3 Smasher plan. The worst thing I have noticed about my version vs a chalice version is that I am very vulnerable to Thoughtseize. I suppose that can be remedied a bit with Leyline, but that card is really bad if not in opening hand here and not exactly budget friendly either. Anyhow, my play-testing with Deep Fiend is going pretty well. It comes down pretty early and Time Walks my opponent pretty effectively on usually T3 - T5 (assuming I don't get thoughtseized away early). One of the toughest things about it is not being good unless I have a 3 drop out, which means super aggressive mulliganing down to, say 4 cards, is pretty dangerous.
I don't think any of the other emerge eldrazi in blue are worth it. They just aren't strong enough payoff and they don't have flash. Part of Elder's charm is that if I have board advantage I can just beat away, hold up mana, and flash Elder in as a response to my opponent targeting my creature for removal. Elder also clears a stalled board pretty well for me to swing away. I agree with you about Copter... might be a 1 of.
So I would still love some answers to my questions in my post above if anyone is willing to help me out. It would be much appreciated! However, I thought I would also try and contribute here. I came up with my own idea of what Eldrazi Stompy could look like for someone who doesn't have Chalice, but would like to try and control the opponent a bit early and ride that to victory with a fast start.
Just like Ashton's stompy deck, I am fishing for a Turn 1 Eldrazi Temple. On Turn 2 I would like to be casting Matter Reshaper, Eldrazi Skyspawner, or (a little worse) Cultivator Drone. This means that my manabase is different because I need blue by T2 and ideally a second blue by T3. The pain lands help me do this while allowing me plenty of colorless mana for my beater Eldrazi. So say I have an Eldrazi Skyspawner out on T2... the line is on T3 to either cast a Reality Smasher (Sac the Eldrazi token from Skyspawner or tap the Cultivator Drone for mana) so I can cast a T3 Reality Smasher quite reliably. A good send plan is to just attack on T3 and then pass and then stop my opponent during their upkeep and cast an Elder Deep-Fiend with Emerge. The hope here is to upgrade my creature to Elder-Deep Fiend and then Timewalk my opponent. If you are concerned they might have removal, you could wait until the end of their turn to cast Elder Deep-Fiend and if they played a creature or permanent, just make sure to tap that down too. That early tempo should be enough to propel us to a win is the theory here. I would still like to find room for 4x Eldrazi Mimic, but I'm not sure what to cut to get there... honestly maybe Thought-Knot? Thought-Knot only curves the way I want if I get T1 and T2 Eldrazi Temple since I am not running SSG in this list. A T1 Mimic, T2 Skyspawner and T3 Reality Smasher ought to be crippling. Another card I like to get an extra of any card we like is a 1x Phyrexian Metamorph. It could be Reality Smasher or Elder Deep-Fiend #5. What do you guys think?
Any criticism / suggestions would be appreciated, thanks:
I have just started to buy into this deck because I think it is really neat and I love that for a linear, aggro deck, there are a lot of interesting decisions to still be made for the pilot. I just have a couple of questions / concerns at this point:
1) I have essentially all of the cards right now to play the deck except for Simian Spirit Guide and Chalice of the Void. I can get SSG fairly easily, but a play-set of Chalice is just so expensive right now. Can I be FNM competitive without Chalice? I sort of like the idea of the version that uses main deck Relic better anyway as multiples of Relic are never dead in hand, whereas you don't really want to see more than a single Chalice very often, right?
2) Copter seems like excellent value to me. I've been testing this deck out by simulating turns and it seems to me that drawing Serum Powders really hurts an aggro deck... but not so much with Copter! Also, my local meta isn't playing hardly any tron right now, so I wonder if I can move the ghost quarter's to sideboard tech and play the full 4x Blinkmoth and 4x Mutavault to help fuel the copter? While it dies to fatal push, the value it offers seems really good to me... perhaps I'm missing something?
3) If I don't buy into Chalice and stick with Relic, could this deck be played with 4x Expedition Map instead of 4x Simian Spirit Guide? Assuming a situation where I get an opening hand Eldrazi Temple, both Map and SSG power out Reality Smasher on T3, which seems awesome. True, only SSG allows us to play Thought-Knot on t2, but SSG is card pure card disadvantage that might be hard to overcome if we are aggressively mulliganing all of the time. On the other hand, Map slows us down for our first two turns, but we should always have enough mana every turn beyond that and we become a lot more resilient to Ghost Quarter with an extra Eldrazi Temple.
If you all would be willing to address my questions/thoughts I would really appreciate it, because you guys seem to have the most experience on this deck that I can find anywhere on the internet.
So last page an intersting esper build was discussed with pale rider of trostad. This piqued my interest and i would like to try it out someday. Here's my idea:
The main addition is plagued rusalka, which seems perfect with bloodghast and lingering souls. The mana costs are heavier on black and i tried to fix the mana for it. Urborg in particular seems like a perfect fit. I also though of playing nether traitor as an additional value sac/discard fodder, but i think bloodghast is just generally better.
Thoughts?
I really like the thought of having a Bloodghast in the yard while a Mausoleum Wanderer is on the battlefield and a fetch land is on my side of the battlefield. I can cheat bloogghast in to respond to my opponent's instant or sorcery and then sac mausoleum wanderer with 1 more power than my opponent might be expecting (or at least my opponent has to play around that). Bloodghast could also work pretty well with Nebelghast Herald. I'm the guy who was interested in Pale Rider, so please let me know how it goes in testing.
This is my current deck, I have seen a lot of success with it but I only go to an fnm with 8ish people and the same ones so I don't know how good it really is. I love how essence flux plays with spell queller so I feel like I want to increase oit or maybe just sideboard against control. Should I run a wrath? Any advice would be appreciated.
Mana Leak gets progressively worse as the game goes on. I do like it at maybe 1x or 2x, but 4x seems like too much to me. I would personally run a couple more spirits and cut those Leaks back. Remand is a 4x all-star in my book though (if you are running UW Tempo Spirits like it seems you are). I would probably cut Essence Flux and run a Kira, Great-Glass Spinner. If you end up topping your curve out at 3cc I would also cut down to 21 lands.
Has anyone tried Plunge into Darkness? To me this card seems like a really awesome tutor for our deck. Only the second ability is relevant most of the time, but if you somehow miscalculate your life total and have an extra creature or two, you could use its first ability.
That card seems pretty bad, tbh. Second half seems pretty high variance for the cost. The 1st half will almost never gain more than 6 life.
@pizzown3d: I'm not sure I understand your argument about the high variance for the cost. With Plunge we can run less life-loss cards because it can be our primary form of life-loss. Also, say you use it on average to hit yourself for 10 life... digging 10 cards deep seems really good to me to take whatever you want... you could take a Death's Shadow, or you could hit a that removal spell that you need. You can also do it at instant speed, unlike Traverse the Ulvenwald.
Has anyone tried Plunge into Darkness? To me this card seems like a really awesome tutor for our deck. Only the second ability is relevant most of the time, but if you somehow miscalculate your life total and have an extra creature or two, you could use its first ability.
Hi Dennis. Haven't I seen you over at the Spirits forum? Anyhow, I'm not so sure about Bitterblossom. I do like it quite a bit in general, but how do you plan to get it into your yard? I personally don't like running Collective Brutatlity because I don't want the card disadvantage very often. Bitterblossom also gets us to our Death's Shadow life goals very slowly, so I don't know that it is too helpful in that regard either. I think it is a great card in Faeries, tokens, or control shells, but not here.
Since we are a tempo deck I think the card loss of Simian Spirit Guide hurts too much to play him. Only combo decks that assemble the combo early and win or lose if the game goes too long want it I think. The beauty of Aether Vial is that even though it is some tempo loss the turn it comes into play (because it doesn't do anything) and it is a miserable top deck after, say, T3, its reusability makes it an absolute power house if you get it out T1. Therefore, I think running 4x is the only correct answer if you are running it at all.
I don't live in a large city, my meta is small and heavily aggro/creature based. There's few control elements used by opponents. Therefore my deck is skewed in that direction. It usually performs well. A small meta can really twist a deck into a specialised/niche piece of kit, and I'm happy in that my deck's quite balanced compared to some, considering how small my meta is.
My current plan is to chop the Midnight Hauntings for the Spirit Bonds. It may require some rejigging to work, I'm thinking I'll need to lose some 3-drops to insert more 1 & 2-drop creatures, to open mana up to leverage Spirit Bonds. As for what 3-drops to cut, I don't know, they're all (in my mind) pretty indispensable.
@Goku:
Thanks for posting your list. I suppose in a creature heavy meta I would drop the Midnight Haunting's for the Spirit Bonds and see what happens.
Yes, clearly I was tempoed out in this scenario, but if I played Selfless T2 the traditional way to see it bolted I would still be tempoed out. We know SSG is the loss of a card in most situations, that is a given, but if it can power out our creatures a turn faster or allow us to play two creatures on a turn we would normally only be able to play 1, that is tempo gain.
Now imagine this scenario. I have an opening hand that contains no cmc 1 cards and two cmc 2 spirits (maybe selfless and rattle chains) and let's say a Drogskol Captain.
Scenario 1: T1 pass, T2 rattlechains, T3 Drogskol (or maybe selfless to play more conservatively)
Scenario 2: T1 SSG into rattlechains, T2 selfless, T3 Drogskol
Now imagine our opponent has a lightning bolt in hand.
Scenario 1 leaves us with either a rattlechains or a drogskol on the board (probably the rattlechains because we didn't put enough early pressure on them to make them feel they needed to use their bolt yet).
Scenario 2 leaves us with two creatures on the battlefield instead and you probably have kept your Drogskol because your opponent saw two 2 power flyers by T2 and was pressured into bolting.
The only question to my mind is can we sacrifice a card in hand for a more explosive start? I'm not sure of the answer but I don't think you can immediately dismiss it with the whole "tempoed out by bolt" argument.
Here's my thoughts:
One of the things that is nice about bant spirits is access to our 3 drops on t2 thanks to noble hierarch. With SSG, we can do the same thing. We can also now do something that bant can't do which is put down a 2 drop on t1, which could be super sweet with supreme phantom... something like a selfless spirit on t1 and a supreme phantom on t2! The ape isn't even a terrible top deck late if you have vial out as he is a spirit you can flash in without any red mana. I might even put a single red fetch in the deck to cast him in a pinch later in the game.
Yes, he is card disadvantage, but he is a shot in the arm for tempo and we ARE a tempo deck.
Personally I have yet to see a 4 drop that works in UW spirits. The best 4 drop for spirits in the format is definitely Collect Company IMO and UW would need something on that level of power to make me play a 4 drop. I didn't even like Cryptic Command in our deck, which is almost like a time-walking cantrip at times. Even though Jace is a good card, I don't think he is right for Spirits.
Throwing my 2 cents in...
TheGratGig: I don't think Dungeon Geist is anywhere near as powerful as Nebelgast. Nebelgast has flash and costs 3 instead of 4. Furthermore, you will never tick your vial up to 4 when all of our best spirits are at 3, so flashing it in will only happen with rattlechains out. Also, Dungeon only triggers on its own ETB, while Nebelgast triggers on any spirit and the gas come from moorland haunt activation when you are out of spirits in hand.
StreexGeist: I liked your arguments for Collective Brutality so I tried it out and found myself always sideboarding it out. The problem I had with it primarily is that I never want to tap out for it (similar to my problem with lingering souls) and as a topdeck you are only getting 1 mode. I love the card, but not in spirits. The best card we have access to in Esper IMO is strangely enough Supernatural Stamina. Stamina makes Mausoleum Wanderer and Selfless Spirit awesome bullets, gives us a little reach, and keeps our guys alive. I also like having access to Fatal Push, but I am underwhelmed with any other black cards I have tried and so I'm leaning back toward UW for its consistency and the ability to add more moorland haunts.
The problems: I think most of us not in bant would agree that the biggest problem we face is a card draw / advantage engine, but we do seem to have a big problem in needing information on our opponents hand to properly sequence our spirits too. Esper can fix this but I already mentioned Brutality didn't seem great and I really dislike Inquisition as it is a miserable top deck and we already have enough of that problem with Aether Vial. To that end, what about the card Peek? It is a 1 mana blue cantrip that allows us to look at our opponent's hand at instant speed. I would never want more than 1 in my opening hand (I don't want to overly complicate my mulligan decision), so 2x seems right to me, but that extra infor seems like it could be relevant.
I just beat Skred although he had a blood moon out on t2, thanks to Serum Powder. About 12 turns in I drew a wastes which was destroyed after putting down a matter reshaper (my lands had been blown up earlier in the game). I then was able to cast a Serum Powder and was able to get two Reality Smashers on the board over the next two turns. Good thing too, because the first smasher was killed by my opponent (after I got an attack in). This is the first time that playing a Serum Powder in my hand has actually be useful. It felt nice.
Thanks for the feedback. I think you are right that dismember is just better than Vapor Snag, although I do like that snag offers a tiny bit of reach and can be used on my own elder-deep fiend. I agree that TKS is awesome on T2, but the problem my deck has is powering him out that early. I either need a double temple hand or I need to be on the draw, use Gemstone, and have a temple. That seems a lot less likely than playing a t2 Eldrazi Drone and then a t3 Reality Smasher, but I could be wrong about that I suppose. I do agree that mimic is pretty important... especially on the T3 Smasher plan. The worst thing I have noticed about my version vs a chalice version is that I am very vulnerable to Thoughtseize. I suppose that can be remedied a bit with Leyline, but that card is really bad if not in opening hand here and not exactly budget friendly either. Anyhow, my play-testing with Deep Fiend is going pretty well. It comes down pretty early and Time Walks my opponent pretty effectively on usually T3 - T5 (assuming I don't get thoughtseized away early). One of the toughest things about it is not being good unless I have a 3 drop out, which means super aggressive mulliganing down to, say 4 cards, is pretty dangerous.
I don't think any of the other emerge eldrazi in blue are worth it. They just aren't strong enough payoff and they don't have flash. Part of Elder's charm is that if I have board advantage I can just beat away, hold up mana, and flash Elder in as a response to my opponent targeting my creature for removal. Elder also clears a stalled board pretty well for me to swing away. I agree with you about Copter... might be a 1 of.
So I would still love some answers to my questions in my post above if anyone is willing to help me out. It would be much appreciated! However, I thought I would also try and contribute here. I came up with my own idea of what Eldrazi Stompy could look like for someone who doesn't have Chalice, but would like to try and control the opponent a bit early and ride that to victory with a fast start.
Just like Ashton's stompy deck, I am fishing for a Turn 1 Eldrazi Temple. On Turn 2 I would like to be casting Matter Reshaper, Eldrazi Skyspawner, or (a little worse) Cultivator Drone. This means that my manabase is different because I need blue by T2 and ideally a second blue by T3. The pain lands help me do this while allowing me plenty of colorless mana for my beater Eldrazi. So say I have an Eldrazi Skyspawner out on T2... the line is on T3 to either cast a Reality Smasher (Sac the Eldrazi token from Skyspawner or tap the Cultivator Drone for mana) so I can cast a T3 Reality Smasher quite reliably. A good send plan is to just attack on T3 and then pass and then stop my opponent during their upkeep and cast an Elder Deep-Fiend with Emerge. The hope here is to upgrade my creature to Elder-Deep Fiend and then Timewalk my opponent. If you are concerned they might have removal, you could wait until the end of their turn to cast Elder Deep-Fiend and if they played a creature or permanent, just make sure to tap that down too. That early tempo should be enough to propel us to a win is the theory here. I would still like to find room for 4x Eldrazi Mimic, but I'm not sure what to cut to get there... honestly maybe Thought-Knot? Thought-Knot only curves the way I want if I get T1 and T2 Eldrazi Temple since I am not running SSG in this list. A T1 Mimic, T2 Skyspawner and T3 Reality Smasher ought to be crippling. Another card I like to get an extra of any card we like is a 1x Phyrexian Metamorph. It could be Reality Smasher or Elder Deep-Fiend #5. What do you guys think?
Any criticism / suggestions would be appreciated, thanks:
Lands:
I have just started to buy into this deck because I think it is really neat and I love that for a linear, aggro deck, there are a lot of interesting decisions to still be made for the pilot. I just have a couple of questions / concerns at this point:
1) I have essentially all of the cards right now to play the deck except for Simian Spirit Guide and Chalice of the Void. I can get SSG fairly easily, but a play-set of Chalice is just so expensive right now. Can I be FNM competitive without Chalice? I sort of like the idea of the version that uses main deck Relic better anyway as multiples of Relic are never dead in hand, whereas you don't really want to see more than a single Chalice very often, right?
2) Copter seems like excellent value to me. I've been testing this deck out by simulating turns and it seems to me that drawing Serum Powders really hurts an aggro deck... but not so much with Copter! Also, my local meta isn't playing hardly any tron right now, so I wonder if I can move the ghost quarter's to sideboard tech and play the full 4x Blinkmoth and 4x Mutavault to help fuel the copter? While it dies to fatal push, the value it offers seems really good to me... perhaps I'm missing something?
3) If I don't buy into Chalice and stick with Relic, could this deck be played with 4x Expedition Map instead of 4x Simian Spirit Guide? Assuming a situation where I get an opening hand Eldrazi Temple, both Map and SSG power out Reality Smasher on T3, which seems awesome. True, only SSG allows us to play Thought-Knot on t2, but SSG is card pure card disadvantage that might be hard to overcome if we are aggressively mulliganing all of the time. On the other hand, Map slows us down for our first two turns, but we should always have enough mana every turn beyond that and we become a lot more resilient to Ghost Quarter with an extra Eldrazi Temple.
If you all would be willing to address my questions/thoughts I would really appreciate it, because you guys seem to have the most experience on this deck that I can find anywhere on the internet.
Thanks!
I really like the thought of having a Bloodghast in the yard while a Mausoleum Wanderer is on the battlefield and a fetch land is on my side of the battlefield. I can cheat bloogghast in to respond to my opponent's instant or sorcery and then sac mausoleum wanderer with 1 more power than my opponent might be expecting (or at least my opponent has to play around that). Bloodghast could also work pretty well with Nebelghast Herald. I'm the guy who was interested in Pale Rider, so please let me know how it goes in testing.
Mana Leak gets progressively worse as the game goes on. I do like it at maybe 1x or 2x, but 4x seems like too much to me. I would personally run a couple more spirits and cut those Leaks back. Remand is a 4x all-star in my book though (if you are running UW Tempo Spirits like it seems you are). I would probably cut Essence Flux and run a Kira, Great-Glass Spinner. If you end up topping your curve out at 3cc I would also cut down to 21 lands.
@pizzown3d: I'm not sure I understand your argument about the high variance for the cost. With Plunge we can run less life-loss cards because it can be our primary form of life-loss. Also, say you use it on average to hit yourself for 10 life... digging 10 cards deep seems really good to me to take whatever you want... you could take a Death's Shadow, or you could hit a that removal spell that you need. You can also do it at instant speed, unlike Traverse the Ulvenwald.
Has anyone tried Plunge into Darkness? To me this card seems like a really awesome tutor for our deck. Only the second ability is relevant most of the time, but if you somehow miscalculate your life total and have an extra creature or two, you could use its first ability.
Hi Dennis. Haven't I seen you over at the Spirits forum? Anyhow, I'm not so sure about Bitterblossom. I do like it quite a bit in general, but how do you plan to get it into your yard? I personally don't like running Collective Brutatlity because I don't want the card disadvantage very often. Bitterblossom also gets us to our Death's Shadow life goals very slowly, so I don't know that it is too helpful in that regard either. I think it is a great card in Faeries, tokens, or control shells, but not here.
@Goku:
Thanks for posting your list. I suppose in a creature heavy meta I would drop the Midnight Haunting's for the Spirit Bonds and see what happens.