The deck definitely LOVES the metamorphs and tumble magnets! Too often was I able to recur each thus giving them new life in counters/cloning. I was able to get a couple Precursor Golems but I have no idea what to take out for them.
My record on Saturday was 2-2 with losses once again to zippy RDW decks. Might just start siding in Fogs.
Played my version at FNM give or take a card or two. Went 4-0 (8-0). Very good night.
Beat UR midrange 2-0
Beat BR Vamps 2-0
Beat UB Infect 2-0
Beat UR Splinter Twin 2-0
The deck performed so well. Im glad I played birds. My favorite start to a game so far is: Birds, Glissa, Sledge, swinging for 6 on turn 3. The deck can aggro out, or play a slower more controling game. I love it, Ill be playing it tomorrow at Gameday.
I only sided once, but does anyone have any suggestions for a good SB. Im packing Spellskites, Beast Within, and Sylvok Replica right now.
Good god man, 4-0?? Definitely a much better night for the deck than I had first presumed. Even I, with the silly/fun OP decklist, went 2-2 (technically 1-2-1 but the tie was because we went into rounds, I made a very stupid mistake and my opponent refused to let me take it back in order to get a tie himself instead of a loss) which surprised me. My most difficult matchups were RDW-type decks. Seeing how the deck does in both a fun and competitive format I guess I'll hunker down and tailor it more towards the local meta for NPH Gameday, something like...
I don't have the Precursor Golems nor was I able to find any so I stuffed the pair of Metamorphs in the MB as a sort-of hail mary and though I wasn't able to copy my singleton Wurmcoil Engine or any of my opponents' big finishers it still made for a decent addition to the deck as a whole, often coming into play as another Piston Sledge or Ratchet Bomb and usually without the two-life casting cost thanks to birds. As for a sideboard I was rather surprised with how well mine did considering I had to panic-build it and included things like the oft-ignored Sylvok Lifestaff and Wall of Tanglecord. For tomorrow though I'm leaning toward (but have certainly not yet settled upon):
Just doesn't FEEL like a Glissa deck anymore. The only effectively-recurrable artifacts you list are the Perilous Myrs, and the Green Sun's Zeniths feel rather lacking considering the only thing they can find are two creatures both of which are legendary. Also how are the Tectonic Edges any less likely to mana-screw you than Phyrexia's Cores were?
Youre thinking about it in the wrong way. Precursor Golem itself is a one card, it just happens to make 2 other 3/3s with it. If it gets bolted or bladed, its not a 3 for 1, its a 1 for 1. Its also pretty easy to off your own original golem so they cant target all of them. Precursor is arguably one of the best creatures against Jace the Mindsculptor too.
Im not saying Golem is a better choice than Wurmcoil Engine. Just the difference between 5 and 6 mana is pretty big for a 23 land deck. Im running both, just less Wurms than Golems.
After a lot of thought (and the suppression of several deck ideas focused mainly around Precursor Golem) I guess my primary hang-up with him is that I built this deck to be more fun than competitive, and I don't really think he'd be much fun without support cards such as Irresistible Prey or Rite of Replication. Basically there's no real "shenanigans" that he can do in this deck.
Still, I see what you mean about needing a decent yet affordable finisher so I'll give him a few test runs. Also I'd like to thank you for helping keep the thread alive, despite my own criticisms of your ideas.
Ive been testing a bit and I really like the way the deck feels. Ive dropped the Revoker for a 3rd Golem. Golem really brings the pain. I feel the deck lacks the fat to win the game when the opportunity presents itself. Golem helps that a lot.
The Wellsprings are sick when you can play them and sack them within the same turn. The deck is coming along nice, hopefully someone else is working on it too.
Lightning Bolt, Doomblade, Dismember, Slagstorm, Naturalize, Glissa's Scorn, Divine Offering, Shatter, and to a lesser extent Slice in Twain and Solemn Offering. All of these spells, when cast upon Precursor Golem, give your opponent the satisfaction of 3-for-1ing you every time, and most of these spells are running rampant in many maindecks and sideboards alike. At least with Wurmcoil Engine you get a very nice pair of creatures when the main daddy dies, and with Steel Hellkite you're saying "answer this or I wipe half your board next turn!". With Precursor Golem you've simply got a trio of 3/3s which can easily be dealt with by a single sworded Stoneforge Mystic or a Batterskull'd Germ.
As for the deck itself I've tweaked it a little, adding a few finishers that I personally prefer (and happened to actually have in my possession).
I'd suggest Hex Parasite instead of the revoker. Parasite can feed off an over-charged Ratchet Bomb allowing you to customize both of them to your specific needs at the time.
Painsmith has no way of being recurred and Precursor Golem is, in my humble opinion, worthless, especially when compared to creatures like Wurmcoil Engine and Steel Hellkite which only cost one mana more but have so many fun shenanigans.
Quick question just for reference: You can re-equip Pistion Sledge to a creature it is already equiping just for the sake of sacrificing an artifact, right?
It would seem I made mine as more of a kamikaze deck than anything, but even so a deck full of Glissas is just begging for Ratchet Bombs. If you blow up ANY of their creatures with it while Glissa is on the field then you immediately get your bomb put back into your hand. The same goes for Perilous Myr and Necropede. I did try mainboarding Sylvok Replicas for a bit but didn't really run into enough artifact creatures to give it as much synergy with Glissa as Necropede would have, hence the replacement.
I debated heavily between Mortar Pod and Blazing Torch and the problem I had was that the pod is literally half the damage for twice the price.
The Mycosynth Wellsprings and Viridian Emissaries are in there because I personally was having a terrible time with mana. 24 lands and I was flooding every other test draw. 22 was starving me like you wouldn't believe and even 23 was far from "just right". I've also learned not to rely on the birds to save me mana-wise, having played Elves for quite a bit I know that good players will always remove early-game manadorks. However I can certainly see the ichor wellsprings being superior to their mycosynth brethren. As for the emissaries though, if your opponent notices that you're hurting for mana and you keep coming at them with a 2/1 that'll give you that last much-needed land (especially if you play-up how badly screwed you are without it) then they'll be inclined to just continue letting him beat their face in until the last possible moment.
At the very least don't remove Beast Within from this deck. It is, in my opinion, one of the best removal spells in the game at the moment and can generate lots of good fortune for you when used on most of the creatures or wellsprings in the original posting.
green sun's zenith makes glissa rediculiously easier to cast and you can find other fun things with it too!
I would like to, I really would, but there's just no room in the deck, and even then I'd only have 3 critters I could search for with it. Glissa, while the star of the deck, is certainly not necessary to have out for it to shine.
I like your deck. I'm just wondering why the bloodghasts? They don't look like they bring much to the table in your deck. This place would probably be better as a tumble magnet or something. That would let you tap down things then either equip sledge or gain a life then get it back with Glissa.
Thank you very much! My roomie suggested Bloodghasts since they're so easy to recur and should I ever get my opponent down to 10 or less life the haste will really help pour on the heat, even moreso with a sledge on 'em. They're yet another card that when I blow up most of my board and half of my opponent's with a bomb primed at 2 I can just shrug it off with a smirk and then play my land for the turn.
After building an awesome-looking B/G deck based around Necrotic Ooze and having my high expectations repeatedly pounded into the dirt when I went 0-4 at FNM I vowed that my next deck idea, win or lose, would focus purely on something FUN! Opting to keep with my base B/G theme I noticed Glissa, the Traitor sitting all alone and unwanted in my rares folder with tears in her undead eyes. So I adopted the little wench and built a deck around her using whatever I happened to have lying around that worked well with her ability and came up with this silly gem:
Criticism is almost always welcome but keep in mind this deck was built primarily for sh*ts'n'giggles. Also I realize I'm probably going to get quite a bit of hate for using Blazing Torch but I just look at it and think "Tap/sac with Glissa out, 2dmg to Stoneforge Mystic, Mystic dies, torch flies back into my hand, re-cast and re-equip to untapped creature for a total of two mana!". So I'd love to hear what others think about the whole setup, especially if anybody can recommend other cards that synch really well that I may have overlooked initially.
Nim Deathmantle might be good with a lot of the sacrifice effects, incluing birthing pod should you have 5 mana available... It also allows you to reuse any of them again through necrotic ooze without loosing the ooze.
I'd strongly recommend switching out something for Fauna Shaman as she's almost a requirement for any deck running Vengevines, especially one that's also running Bloodghasts. Also there's not nearly enough fuel for the Necrotic Ooze, would be better off running something else like Vampire Nighthawk.
My record on Saturday was 2-2 with losses once again to zippy RDW decks. Might just start siding in Fogs.
Good god man, 4-0?? Definitely a much better night for the deck than I had first presumed. Even I, with the silly/fun OP decklist, went 2-2 (technically 1-2-1 but the tie was because we went into rounds, I made a very stupid mistake and my opponent refused to let me take it back in order to get a tie himself instead of a loss) which surprised me. My most difficult matchups were RDW-type decks. Seeing how the deck does in both a fun and competitive format I guess I'll hunker down and tailor it more towards the local meta for NPH Gameday, something like...
2 Phyrexia's Core
4 Verdant Catacombs
9 Forest
8 Swamp
Critters 19
4 Glissa, the Traitor
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Perilous Myr
4 Viridian Emissary
2 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Ratchet Bomb
3 Piston Sledge
3 Ichor Wellspring
2 Tumble Magnet
1 Mortarpod
3 Beast Within
3 Doom Blade
I don't have the Precursor Golems nor was I able to find any so I stuffed the pair of Metamorphs in the MB as a sort-of hail mary and though I wasn't able to copy my singleton Wurmcoil Engine or any of my opponents' big finishers it still made for a decent addition to the deck as a whole, often coming into play as another Piston Sledge or Ratchet Bomb and usually without the two-life casting cost thanks to birds. As for a sideboard I was rather surprised with how well mine did considering I had to panic-build it and included things like the oft-ignored Sylvok Lifestaff and Wall of Tanglecord. For tomorrow though I'm leaning toward (but have certainly not yet settled upon):
3 Hex Parasite
4 Sylvok Replica
3 Sylvok Lifestaff
2 Torpor Orb
Best of luck with Gameday, folks, and thanks again for helping keep Glissa's undead elven booty relevant and competitive!
I considered it several times but I can't for the life of me remember why I didn't include it. How many would you suggest putting in?
After a lot of thought (and the suppression of several deck ideas focused mainly around Precursor Golem) I guess my primary hang-up with him is that I built this deck to be more fun than competitive, and I don't really think he'd be much fun without support cards such as Irresistible Prey or Rite of Replication. Basically there's no real "shenanigans" that he can do in this deck.
Still, I see what you mean about needing a decent yet affordable finisher so I'll give him a few test runs. Also I'd like to thank you for helping keep the thread alive, despite my own criticisms of your ideas.
Lightning Bolt, Doomblade, Dismember, Slagstorm, Naturalize, Glissa's Scorn, Divine Offering, Shatter, and to a lesser extent Slice in Twain and Solemn Offering. All of these spells, when cast upon Precursor Golem, give your opponent the satisfaction of 3-for-1ing you every time, and most of these spells are running rampant in many maindecks and sideboards alike. At least with Wurmcoil Engine you get a very nice pair of creatures when the main daddy dies, and with Steel Hellkite you're saying "answer this or I wipe half your board next turn!". With Precursor Golem you've simply got a trio of 3/3s which can easily be dealt with by a single sworded Stoneforge Mystic or a Batterskull'd Germ.
As for the deck itself I've tweaked it a little, adding a few finishers that I personally prefer (and happened to actually have in my possession).
I'd suggest Hex Parasite instead of the revoker. Parasite can feed off an over-charged Ratchet Bomb allowing you to customize both of them to your specific needs at the time.
Painsmith has no way of being recurred and Precursor Golem is, in my humble opinion, worthless, especially when compared to creatures like Wurmcoil Engine and Steel Hellkite which only cost one mana more but have so many fun shenanigans.
Yes you can.
I debated heavily between Mortar Pod and Blazing Torch and the problem I had was that the pod is literally half the damage for twice the price.
The Mycosynth Wellsprings and Viridian Emissaries are in there because I personally was having a terrible time with mana. 24 lands and I was flooding every other test draw. 22 was starving me like you wouldn't believe and even 23 was far from "just right". I've also learned not to rely on the birds to save me mana-wise, having played Elves for quite a bit I know that good players will always remove early-game manadorks. However I can certainly see the ichor wellsprings being superior to their mycosynth brethren. As for the emissaries though, if your opponent notices that you're hurting for mana and you keep coming at them with a 2/1 that'll give you that last much-needed land (especially if you play-up how badly screwed you are without it) then they'll be inclined to just continue letting him beat their face in until the last possible moment.
At the very least don't remove Beast Within from this deck. It is, in my opinion, one of the best removal spells in the game at the moment and can generate lots of good fortune for you when used on most of the creatures or wellsprings in the original posting.
I would like to, I really would, but there's just no room in the deck, and even then I'd only have 3 critters I could search for with it. Glissa, while the star of the deck, is certainly not necessary to have out for it to shine.
Thank you very much! My roomie suggested Bloodghasts since they're so easy to recur and should I ever get my opponent down to 10 or less life the haste will really help pour on the heat, even moreso with a sledge on 'em. They're yet another card that when I blow up most of my board and half of my opponent's with a bomb primed at 2 I can just shrug it off with a smirk and then play my land for the turn.
3 Phyrexia's Core
4 Verdant Catacombs
8 Forest
8 Swamp
Critters 23
4 Glissa, the Traitor
4 Birds of Paradise
3 Necropede
4 Perilous Myr
4 Viridian Emissary
3 Bloodghast
1 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Ratchet Bomb
3 Piston Sledge
2 Mycosynth Wellspring
2 Ichor Wellspring
1 Blazing Torch
2 Beast Within
Criticism is almost always welcome but keep in mind this deck was built primarily for sh*ts'n'giggles. Also I realize I'm probably going to get quite a bit of hate for using Blazing Torch but I just look at it and think "Tap/sac with Glissa out, 2dmg to Stoneforge Mystic, Mystic dies, torch flies back into my hand, re-cast and re-equip to untapped creature for a total of two mana!". So I'd love to hear what others think about the whole setup, especially if anybody can recommend other cards that synch really well that I may have overlooked initially.
That's an awesome idea, thank you!
I'd strongly recommend switching out something for Fauna Shaman as she's almost a requirement for any deck running Vengevines, especially one that's also running Bloodghasts. Also there's not nearly enough fuel for the Necrotic Ooze, would be better off running something else like Vampire Nighthawk.