What isn't talked about is that channeler forces you to include more triton and the saga.
-its super hard to escape kroxa and keep channeler at 4/4. You discard a card for a chance to play something off top. Good not great. Its overall inefficient use of resources. If only channeler binned instead of exiling, it would be soooooo good.
Conversely, exiling cards naturally, more dedicated to exiling non creatures has zero inefficiency. How many times are you escaping in a game.
For 3 mana call, you can proc a kroxa etb trigger AND get either a 5/5 flyer or a deathtouch fireblade charger. That fireblade turns into: if you attack into it, it's going to kill 2 creatures. Or you could just sac it to village rites... and still kill a creature if you need the instant interaction/draw
Not only that but call gets back Lurrus which can proc kroxa every turn, without escaping.
This is a potentially faster version aggro/midrange deck that absolutely wrecks control AND has better creature control early on.
Take out ox, channeler, triton, tymaret saga. And replace with aforementioned combo, more or less.
Had a strong matchup against omnath, preban, and still eats rogues.
No love? It crushes aggro and also counterspells. Its weak against exile graveyard effects and has game against everything else. Bye bye uro= less yard hate
And any host of x = 0 creatures and any host of x/1 creatures.
All you have to do is get Ultimatum to resolve. Return everything you can and stack oasis triggers over oracle trigger. And boom, the "spiteful" look on your opponents face.
Add black? Quite a few black cards in zendikar for killing creatures and creature recursion. Play a land, draw a card, in enchantment form is barely in any decks that I've seen. Let alone top ten lists. Draw a card is the most powerful line of text a magic card can have. Does anyone have an updated standard rotation list, which set is rotating?
Or it's a combo that draws 2 additional cards per turn and thins your deck. Literally just named an engine that can create infinite mana, infinite creatures, infinite, draw, an army of 10/10 landfallers. ... theres so many routes you can take and all 3 cards are good on this own. Cobra puts out greenwarden on turn 4 with minimal effort. So I have 24 cards to stop RDW?
Any land you play gives you 5 mana, assuming it's a fetch. Play and crack is 4 cobra triggers and the land itself. So essentially, any 5 mana card that plays an extra land untapped... is free. Why nitpick, that's gross. You just keep replaying that same fetch with greenwarden. If growth spiral is legal, it's dark ritual + draw 3 that even color fixes, Ummmm.
So you have all 3 out, 4 lands, and you just untapped to start your turn 5. You play a fetch from graveyard and crack it.
-5 lands, 9 mana to spend.
Valakut pseudo draws you 4 cards
How abusive is this? You play Arboreal Grazer. Now you have 10 mana to spend, and you've pseudo drawn 6 cards. We're still on turn 5. You've had, in effect, 6 landfall triggers. You can cast Uro, and get all 3 mana right back. You can chain Nahiri's Lithoforming in a variety of ways.
Seriously, pick your win con, like anything. You've drawn 6 cards and have 10 mana to spend on turn 5
Am I the only person that sees valakut exploration as the best card in the set. It's more or less, draw a card and/or ping opponent every turn. Tons of ways to drop a bunch of lands. Greenwarden, Valakut, And Nahiri's Lithoforming is 12 damage if you sac 4 lands just to replay them tapped. It also would draw 4/ bin 4 if you want the damage. There are many jund cards that can make this finisher both consistent and resilient.
Turn 2 Cobra.
Turn 3 Ilysian Grove, fetch, AND valakut
Turn 4, Greenwarden and ballgame. Like seriously, you still have 4 mana, after casting greenwarden, you've drawn an extra card. You still have a land play, so replay the fetch again which draws another 2 and rituals a land. Let me just grow that Nissa and play greenwarden for free..
Or maybe that 3 mana black mode card that either discards two, replays a cobra and/kills 3 or less cmc creature. Not one but two landfall tramples at 3cmc. Toss in red wheel land a some bolts/ramps and you have a deck that threatens lethal as early as turn 4
Standard: Greenwarden is probably the best card in the set. Crucuble, doubles triggers on a 5/7 body with reach.
Compare Valakut Exploration to Phyrexian Arena for example. Then compare it to literally any red card that let's you exile top of library, and maybe never play it. You can abuse filling your yard.
Theres a 3 mana death's shadow variant.
That Nissa is exactly what rock decks were looking for.
red wheel land is very good for combo decks.
Lotus Cobra can give you 7 mana on it's own on turn 4 assuming a fetch is your 4th land.
This is the basic combo. It doesn't look like all that much, but there is a ton of grind in here.
Scorpion eats up rdw. That's first and foremost. It will eat a shock and gain 2 life! Or chump pesky for days... I don't have to explain much that Luminous allows for both chump/sac schinanigansthat create flyers while simultaneous wrath protection... but it brings me to the next card: Fiend Artisan. A Goyf lite with search capability.
The knock of course, is sorcery speed, oh how I'd love to counter a kill spell with alseid, 3 Mana and even add to it's PT. But I'll settle with your kill spell giving him flying.
Nonetheless. The coup de grace is no doubt Moth. So you want creatures with etb or dying triggers. That opens up a wide playbook. Plaguecrafter, knight of autumn, and many more can do some serious work. In testing I once came across saccing a lowly burglar rats to find another before saccing that with moth on the field resulting in pay 3: opponent discards 3. I've since moved away from the rats in favor of a 1 of destiny spinner as it was for control matchups.
Additionally, that abzan mythos allows for a creature orientated deck. And you could add a toolbox with friend's, cheap too. You could add redundancy with cav of night or death's oasis. You could add draw with reaper.
I'm still thinkering a bit but a pretty cool trick is destiny spinning a witch's cottage to bring back the moth or cav to your next draw.
This deck crushes rdw and has good game against control. It's typical abzan fairness, but even the very first deck test 1-2'd jeskair fires, an established deck with a questionable g3 keep. Will have a more modified decklist shortly.
Neth can't muate humans unfortunately. But to answer your question there are tons and tons of cheap creatures that mill you on etb. Or chump. Nest and Konrad does 15 damage Minimum on turn 5 provided you stacked your deck with mill creatures. People be like I have 19 life, I'm good. Bam, lethal.
White doesn't have mill, why white?
Two important notes before I continue:
-Nest allows you to play Konrad for BB and effectively ramps you to not pay colorless on any card provided you dedicate to self-mill.
- Exiling creatures from your yard with Nest to generate colorless Mana triggers Konrad to ping.
The premise of this type of deck is to mill yourself using etb creatures... Ur merfolk secret keepers, wall of lost dreams, mire Triton, Gorging Vulture etc. Now that you have a graveyard with 10-20 cards you can go ham with Nest/Konrad and possibly Nethroi Apex of death.
It is very easy to ping for 15+ damage on turn 5 by casting Konrad for BB with Nest on the field. Exile the creatures with Nest and boom, damage. In magic Christmas land you have bbbbg lands, and mutate Nethroi onto Konrad for BBG and exiles. Remember, your bringing back a bunch of small cheap self millers which in turn, causes even more Konrad triggers from whatever creatures you mill.
The icing on the cake is that your not just double pinging with Konrad/Nethroi... You're draining, and if you ever pull it off... It's a 50+ Life Drain combo on turn 5 in a deck with plenty of chumpers like walls and deathtouch.
The only other non creatures I included was Tamiyo for obvious self mill and recursion reasons.
It's not finely tuned but it hits hard and is fairly resilient
You can now cheat in any dragon or artifact in your library.
Maybe even a Goldspan so you can have 4-6 mana for 2nd main.
Theres tons of ways to go from there. You don't even need more than a pair of Magda's, Stimulus Package is life, +1/+1 counters, and chumps for days.
@whoever complained it's green: It's 5G... In a treasure deck... Mise as well be colorless.
What isn't talked about is that channeler forces you to include more triton and the saga.
-its super hard to escape kroxa and keep channeler at 4/4. You discard a card for a chance to play something off top. Good not great. Its overall inefficient use of resources. If only channeler binned instead of exiling, it would be soooooo good.
Conversely, exiling cards naturally, more dedicated to exiling non creatures has zero inefficiency. How many times are you escaping in a game.
For 3 mana call, you can proc a kroxa etb trigger AND get either a 5/5 flyer or a deathtouch fireblade charger. That fireblade turns into: if you attack into it, it's going to kill 2 creatures. Or you could just sac it to village rites... and still kill a creature if you need the instant interaction/draw
Not only that but call gets back Lurrus which can proc kroxa every turn, without escaping.
This is a potentially faster version aggro/midrange deck that absolutely wrecks control AND has better creature control early on.
Take out ox, channeler, triton, tymaret saga. And replace with aforementioned combo, more or less.
Had a strong matchup against omnath, preban, and still eats rogues.
And any host of x = 0 creatures and any host of x/1 creatures.
All you have to do is get Ultimatum to resolve. Return everything you can and stack oasis triggers over oracle trigger. And boom, the "spiteful" look on your opponents face.
4 Fireblade Charger
4 Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger
4 Skyclave Shade
2 Lurrus of the Dream-Den
3 Bloodchief's Thirst
3 Heartless Act
4 Call of the Death-Dweller
4 Village Rites
2 Demonic Embrace
2 Agadeem's Awakening
2 Spikefield Hazard
2 Castle Locthwain
So you have all 3 out, 4 lands, and you just untapped to start your turn 5. You play a fetch from graveyard and crack it.
-5 lands, 9 mana to spend.
Valakut pseudo draws you 4 cards
How abusive is this? You play Arboreal Grazer. Now you have 10 mana to spend, and you've pseudo drawn 6 cards. We're still on turn 5. You've had, in effect, 6 landfall triggers. You can cast Uro, and get all 3 mana right back. You can chain Nahiri's Lithoforming in a variety of ways.
Seriously, pick your win con, like anything. You've drawn 6 cards and have 10 mana to spend on turn 5
Turn 2 Cobra.
Turn 3 Ilysian Grove, fetch, AND valakut
Turn 4, Greenwarden and ballgame. Like seriously, you still have 4 mana, after casting greenwarden, you've drawn an extra card. You still have a land play, so replay the fetch again which draws another 2 and rituals a land. Let me just grow that Nissa and play greenwarden for free..
Or maybe that 3 mana black mode card that either discards two, replays a cobra and/kills 3 or less cmc creature. Not one but two landfall tramples at 3cmc. Toss in red wheel land a some bolts/ramps and you have a deck that threatens lethal as early as turn 4
Compare Valakut Exploration to Phyrexian Arena for example. Then compare it to literally any red card that let's you exile top of library, and maybe never play it. You can abuse filling your yard.
Theres a 3 mana death's shadow variant.
That Nissa is exactly what rock decks were looking for.
red wheel land is very good for combo decks.
Lotus Cobra can give you 7 mana on it's own on turn 4 assuming a fetch is your 4th land.
I really like the combo potential of Nahiri's Lithoforming.
Not a big blue player if you couldn't tell haha
This is the basic combo. It doesn't look like all that much, but there is a ton of grind in here.
Scorpion eats up rdw. That's first and foremost. It will eat a shock and gain 2 life! Or chump pesky for days... I don't have to explain much that Luminous allows for both chump/sac schinanigansthat create flyers while simultaneous wrath protection... but it brings me to the next card: Fiend Artisan. A Goyf lite with search capability.
The knock of course, is sorcery speed, oh how I'd love to counter a kill spell with alseid, 3 Mana and even add to it's PT. But I'll settle with your kill spell giving him flying.
Nonetheless. The coup de grace is no doubt Moth. So you want creatures with etb or dying triggers. That opens up a wide playbook. Plaguecrafter, knight of autumn, and many more can do some serious work. In testing I once came across saccing a lowly burglar rats to find another before saccing that with moth on the field resulting in pay 3: opponent discards 3. I've since moved away from the rats in favor of a 1 of destiny spinner as it was for control matchups.
Additionally, that abzan mythos allows for a creature orientated deck. And you could add a toolbox with friend's, cheap too. You could add redundancy with cav of night or death's oasis. You could add draw with reaper.
I'm still thinkering a bit but a pretty cool trick is destiny spinning a witch's cottage to bring back the moth or cav to your next draw.
This deck crushes rdw and has good game against control. It's typical abzan fairness, but even the very first deck test 1-2'd jeskair fires, an established deck with a questionable g3 keep. Will have a more modified decklist shortly.
White doesn't have mill, why white?
Two important notes before I continue:
-Nest allows you to play Konrad for BB and effectively ramps you to not pay colorless on any card provided you dedicate to self-mill.
- Exiling creatures from your yard with Nest to generate colorless Mana triggers Konrad to ping.
The premise of this type of deck is to mill yourself using etb creatures... Ur merfolk secret keepers, wall of lost dreams, mire Triton, Gorging Vulture etc. Now that you have a graveyard with 10-20 cards you can go ham with Nest/Konrad and possibly Nethroi Apex of death.
It is very easy to ping for 15+ damage on turn 5 by casting Konrad for BB with Nest on the field. Exile the creatures with Nest and boom, damage. In magic Christmas land you have bbbbg lands, and mutate Nethroi onto Konrad for BBG and exiles. Remember, your bringing back a bunch of small cheap self millers which in turn, causes even more Konrad triggers from whatever creatures you mill.
The icing on the cake is that your not just double pinging with Konrad/Nethroi... You're draining, and if you ever pull it off... It's a 50+ Life Drain combo on turn 5 in a deck with plenty of chumpers like walls and deathtouch.
The only other non creatures I included was Tamiyo for obvious self mill and recursion reasons.
It's not finely tuned but it hits hard and is fairly resilient
4 Wall of Lost Thoughts
4 Mire Triton
4 Plaguecrafter
4 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
2 Mindrack Harpy
4 Syr Konrad, the Grim
3 Nethroi, Apex of Death
3 Tamiyo, Collector of Tales