This deck has been preforming well for me and I would like to see if the community has any suggestions that might make it more efficient.
The basic strategy that I use when I pilot this deck quite simple. play xenagos ASAP, all the ramp in the deck is geared to get him out by turn 3 or 4. after that you start swinging in for the win, I expect my creatures will only be able to get off 1 attack before they die, however if they are not dealt with most creatures will win the game quite quickly.
I feel the deck has functioned the best when I started to add more direct damage board wipes and artifact/enchantment destruction, they help to clear the board for a swing and even with the relative weakness of "destroy" effects I find they are largely effective.
A lot of xenagos lists that I have seen run many trample enablers to run over enemies, most of my finishers do have trample, I also have 3 trample enablers and 2 trample tutors and it is very effective however I feel the opportunity to destroy an opponents field or planeswalkers with X damage board wipes is more useful than Pump/trample/additional combat phase sorcery/instants. with all the mana accel they also give reach if for any reason creatures are having trouble swinging through, just earthquake over the top. they usuallu don't kill my own creatures and even if they do the only reason to cast it, is if it is the best option, in which case you're still saved.
I've found the communal ramp, communal mana doublers and communal mana bonusers to regularly be more effective to me than my opponents. However the mana doublers have been the most lackluster and I would be happy to replace them with cards that serve the same purpose which is getting Xenagos out on turn 4 at the latest. The vineyards have not seen play but I imagine dropping xenagos a turn early is worth what my opponents may do with 2 colorless mana before he comes down. The Communal ramp spells have been absolutely amazing everytime I have played them, it makes friends and gets me to critical mass by the time I untap.
Another change that I feel has greatly improved the deck is the addition of sensei's divining top and mirri's guile they can come down early and almost always improve my draw quality, I'm never unhappy to see them.
My playgroup allows proxies so cost of cards was never considered in the building of this deck. My playgroup also frowns on infinite combos and I agree, however most board locks are allowed. which keeps the atmosphere quite competitive.
Here is my list, any and all suggestions or discussions will be carefully considered and welcomed.
I'm just starting to build this deck and I am still in the very early stages. This list is nowhere near ready yet, I am in the process of making cuts and refining the strategy, any input is more than welcome. this list will change as I make changes to the deck. the general strategy is to use moderately sized utility fatties to protect while I wait for people to be low enough for some very large fireballs and such.
no infinite combos but that's about it, no budget because my playgroup allows proxying
no tricks (minus Jokulhaups and Avacyn, Angel of HopeFaith's Reward Legion's InitiativeGhostway, no infinite combos just consistent, resilient reanimation.
This deck has 1 goal in mind, get creatures in play. there are a few tutorable cards that i can use for removal and they are tuned for my meta.
In a meta that is packing more reanimation hate those cards can and should be changed. everything in this deck is geared towards draw, discard or reanimation
in an attempt to make it consistent and resilient.
If you play in a very competitive meta where your opponents typically combo out early then this deck is not for you.
My playgroup allows proxying so budget was never a consideration in the building of this deck.
I run no mana fixing other than Land Tax because everything in the deck is so cheap and the manabase is fairly reliable already,
I don't believe mana ramp is necessary in this deck because I don't want to be dropping fatty creatures too early in a multiplayer game or it will draw much hate
combined with the fact that I would need to devote atleast 8 cards to mana accel to make it any sort of reliable I believe in this case it is better to pack more bombs
and wait a turn or 2 to get going.
The creatures are the best I could find in terms of affecting the game state immeadieatly and/or being a win condition on their own.
Because there is so much reanimation in the deck I believe the deck can support 1-4 creatures that are not playable by Kaalia.
Kaalia will either eat removal or beat face, she is not the primary strategy of the deck but she is very useful and should be used as such.
The idea of discarding creatures when Kaalia requires them in hand to be useful does seem and is counter-synergistic because of this
I run 25 fatties not including anger and concentrate my discard strategy around card draw to ensure I will always have a fatty in hand and in the graveyard when needed.
THE DECK RIGHT NOW
I have been tweaking this deck for a while but I believe more tweaking can still be done to further improve the strategy; more draw spells could be necessary because
running out of gas and being in topdeck mode is a 1 way ticket to a loss, the creature suite could be updated and changed to provide a greater benefit and more or less protection
could be helpful. Haste is also a crucial component for any reanimator, there is only one option for haste in the deck if the creature does not already have it and that is anger,
I had swiftfoot boots and lightning greaves in the deck at one point in time but I believe it is better to have enough ways to guarantee haste reliably
or have a few ways to tutor for it. because anger is tutorable with entomb and buried alive and in a pinch can be found with a real tutor it should be available by midgame if necessary.
There is not much single target removal in my meta or cards like lightning greaves may be in the deck if that was a larger concern.
for this to work you need ways to remove your opponents threats after you copy them. may i suggest green for beast within and bramblecrush or black for the slew of creature removal it has. even mind control would work
past hour and a half of testing (three games at a time on workstation) with both forbidden alchemy and mulch. I love playing both, but I feel like the mana base is shaky. Not that I don't like it, I do. Its just. I guess it could use a tad more blue? I don't know. But yes, Mulch x4, Alchemy x3 is good for me.
I like your list quite a bit however i think 2 postmortem lunge is the right number. Gnaw to the bone seems super underwhelming, there are much better card choices for that slot IMO. and green sun's zenith ?
have you given any thought to running noxious revival you have enough LD where you should have some in your opening hand, so noxious revival can recur your good LD spells and act as psuedo-LD itself or recur other bombs.
Thrun + come creature removal instead of so much ramp would probably work better for you IMO. ramping into LD can shut them down but LD + removal is a much more defensive strategy and would work better IMO.
What would you bother to hit with a Snapcaster Mage? The only thing notable is Beast Within. Devil's Play has flashback, both of the Zeniths shuffle on resolution, and Rampant Growth hardly seems worth it.
good point, i still think that think twice is a sub par card and should be replaced. possibly a split between dissipate and more removal.
I can see what you're trying to do and i like it. What about snapcaster mage in place of think twice . think twice seems rather underwelming to me and i think there's better blue cards for that slot atleast.
thun is acceptable imo like dotpic suggests, skinshifter has potential, maybe even angelic destiny i'm really not sure. i would suggest devoting those slots to more answers instead of more threats.
that seems a good a place as any to try green sun's out.
Either O-rings or ramp imo, it's up to what you want to do really those spots seem pretty negotiable.
i would say 24 lands is a good place to start like frox suggested, from there you should tweak it based on how often you see yourself getting land/color screwed and how much mana you need to close a game out.
Just going off of a number of mono-G or G/W decks i have seen on the forums thus far this deck looks like it isn't going to run very well. i see a number of glaring problems.
mainly the speed of the deck when compared to the rest of the meta. 20 lands seems a bit low when a size-able chunk of your deck is 6-8 CC. i think you would benefit from green sun's zenith since save for elesh norn you are mono-G.
asceticism is a questionable main deck choice and without evidence of you testing it any defense you would make for it is merely conjecture, i do understand the uses you believe it has.
I do disagree with what has been said about dungrove, i think he is acceptable in this deck and you have a solid argument for using him. However i think you could make better use of him with a few land adjustments.
Liege seems like overkill to me and having some oblivion rings in his place may serve you better.
What about running noxious revival over lead the stampede . You lose being able to draw more creatures i know, but the utility revival brings is substantial imo. It can recover you adequately after a DoJ since most threats you drop are size able ones and allows the deck to run a heavier removal package while still having resiliency.
what happens in games where all you see are treasure mage's and caged sun. hopefully you see a birthing pod? come on, too random. in order to smooth out that problem you would have to add some kind of blue draw to the deck and that would cut all the space the deck has for ways to protect itself.
Just because you have more pieces to grab 1 of 2 pieces of your combo doesn't mean your odds are THAT good.
Good idea IMO but not as practical as you think it is.
I've been brainstorming a list with your concept in mind, this is what I've thought up. No play testing or anything like that just tossing some ideas around.
turn 3 tuktuk followed by turn 4 doj or fireball/arc trail seems pretty brutal, it looks like there is plenty of outs to kill tuktuk. with the inclusion of fireball/arc trail you can gain a decent amount of recursion for chandra's phoenix but more burn might be needed for that to work.
I didn't like all the weenie creatures, sure they give you CA when you wipe the board but anything your opponent plays at that point can beat a 1/1 myr sire and a 3/3 flying bird token isn't a fast enough clock at turn 5-6 without a Worldslayer or Angelic destiny around.
Anyway i have to get out of here but here is a super rough version of the list I've been toying with.
The basic strategy that I use when I pilot this deck quite simple. play xenagos ASAP, all the ramp in the deck is geared to get him out by turn 3 or 4. after that you start swinging in for the win, I expect my creatures will only be able to get off 1 attack before they die, however if they are not dealt with most creatures will win the game quite quickly.
I feel the deck has functioned the best when I started to add more direct damage board wipes and artifact/enchantment destruction, they help to clear the board for a swing and even with the relative weakness of "destroy" effects I find they are largely effective.
A lot of xenagos lists that I have seen run many trample enablers to run over enemies, most of my finishers do have trample, I also have 3 trample enablers and 2 trample tutors and it is very effective however I feel the opportunity to destroy an opponents field or planeswalkers with X damage board wipes is more useful than Pump/trample/additional combat phase sorcery/instants. with all the mana accel they also give reach if for any reason creatures are having trouble swinging through, just earthquake over the top. they usuallu don't kill my own creatures and even if they do the only reason to cast it, is if it is the best option, in which case you're still saved.
I've found the communal ramp, communal mana doublers and communal mana bonusers to regularly be more effective to me than my opponents. However the mana doublers have been the most lackluster and I would be happy to replace them with cards that serve the same purpose which is getting Xenagos out on turn 4 at the latest. The vineyards have not seen play but I imagine dropping xenagos a turn early is worth what my opponents may do with 2 colorless mana before he comes down. The Communal ramp spells have been absolutely amazing everytime I have played them, it makes friends and gets me to critical mass by the time I untap.
Another change that I feel has greatly improved the deck is the addition of sensei's divining top and mirri's guile they can come down early and almost always improve my draw quality, I'm never unhappy to see them.
My playgroup allows proxies so cost of cards was never considered in the building of this deck. My playgroup also frowns on infinite combos and I agree, however most board locks are allowed. which keeps the atmosphere quite competitive.
Here is my list, any and all suggestions or discussions will be carefully considered and welcomed.
First, the breakdown
RAMP (18)
DRAW/FILTER (10)
RECUR/TUTOR (11)
BOARD WIPES (9)
REMOVAL (7)
FINISHERS/CREATURE TUTORS (18)
1x Acidic Slime
1x Apocalypse Hydra
1x Bane of Progress
1x Bloom Tender
1x Devoted Druid
1x Eternal Witness
1x Genesis Hydra
1x Heartwood Storyteller
1x Imperial Recruiter
1x Joraga Treespeaker
1x Kalonian Hydra
1x Lifeblood Hydra
1x Magus of the Vineyard
1x Malignus
1x Mana-Charged Dragon
1x Primordial Hydra
1x Rampaging Baloths
1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1x Savageborn Hydra
1x Scourge of the Throne
1x Xenagos, God of Revels
Instant (12)
1x Beast Within
1x Chaos Warp
1x Comet Storm
1x Crop Rotation
1x Fault Line
1x Krosan Grip
1x Nature's Claim
1x Signal the Clans
1x Squall Line
1x Starstorm
1x Summoner's Pact
1x Worldly Tutor
1x Eladamri's Vineyard
1x Elemental Resonance
1x Greater Good
1x Heartbeat of Spring
1x Mirri's Guile
1x Overabundance
1x Overgrowth
1x Sylvan Library
Sorcery (19)
1x Blasphemous Act
1x Clan Defiance
1x Collective Voyage
1x Cultivate
1x Earthquake
1x Gamble
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Growth Spasm
1x Harmonize
1x Hull Breach
1x Kodama's Reach
1x New Frontiers
1x Reforge the Soul
1x Rolling Earthquake
1x Savage Twister
1x Sylvan Tutor
1x Tempt with Discovery
1x Tooth and Nail
1x Wheel of Fortune
Land (35)
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Arid Mesa
1x Command Tower
1x Fire-Lit Thicket
11x Forest
1x Haunted Fengraf
1x Kessig Wolf Run
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Mossfire Valley
7x Mountain
1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1x Rogue's Passage
1x Rootbound Crag
1x Skarrg, the Rage Pits
1x Stomping Ground
1x Strip Mine
1x Taiga
1x Vesuva
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Expedition Map
1x Grim Monolith
1x Mana Vault
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
no infinite combos but that's about it, no budget because my playgroup allows proxying
1x Arashi, the Sky Asunder
1x Eternal Witness
1x Heartless Hidetsugu
1x Keeper of Progenitus
1x Magmatic Force
1x Magus of the Candelabra
1x Malignus
1x Primordial Hydra
1x Protean Hydra
1x Quirion Ranger
1x Radha, Heir to Keld
1x Rumbling Slum
1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1x Savageborn Hydra
1x Seeker of Skybreak
1x Silklash Spider
1x Steel Hellkite
1x Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
1x Wort, the Raidmother
1x Zhur-Taa Ancient
Sorcery (12)
1x Browbeat
1x Clan Defiance
1x Collective Voyage
1x Decimate
1x Earthquake
1x Green Sun's Zenith
1x Hurricane
1x Molten Disaster
1x Rolling Earthquake
1x Soul's Majesty
1x Tooth and Nail
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Chord of Calling
1x Comet Storm
1x Fault Line
1x Squall Line
Planeswalker (4)
1x Chandra, the Firebrand
1x Garruk Wildspeaker
1x Koth of the Hammer
1x Sarkhan Vol
Land (35)
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Arid MesaM
1x Buried Ruin
1x Fire-Lit Thicket
8x Forest
1x Hall of the Bandit Lord
1x Hammerheim
1x Haunted Fengraf
1x Kessig Wolf Run
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Mossfire Valley
8x Mountain
1x Rogue's Passage
1x Rootbound Crag
1x Stomping Ground
1x Taiga
1x Temple of the False God
1x Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1x Vesuva
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Yavimaya Hollow
1x Basalt Monolith
1x Chimeric Mass
1x Everflowing Chalice
1x Gilded Lotus
1x Grim Monolith
1x Magewright's Stone
1x Mana Vault
1x Mirari
1x Sol Ring
1x Thousand-Year Elixir
1x Thran Dynamo
Enchantment (8)
1x Braid of Fire
1x Furnace of Rath
1x Heartbeat of Spring
1x Instill Energy
1x Mana Flare
1x Mana Reflection
1x Overabundance
1x Sylvan Library
BURN (9)
MANA RAMP (18)
MANA DOUBLERS (7)
DRAW (4)
SEARCH (3)
X CREATURES (3)
X ABILITIES (3)
SPELL DOUBLERS (2)
DAMAGE CREATURES (3)
CREATURES (2)
REMOVAL (2)
This deck has 1 goal in mind, get creatures in play. there are a few tutorable cards that i can use for removal and they are tuned for my meta.
In a meta that is packing more reanimation hate those cards can and should be changed. everything in this deck is geared towards draw, discard or reanimation
in an attempt to make it consistent and resilient.
If you play in a very competitive meta where your opponents typically combo out early then this deck is not for you.
My playgroup allows proxying so budget was never a consideration in the building of this deck.
1x Kaalia of the Vast
Creature (31)
1x Anger
1x Aurelia, the Warleader
1x Avacyn, Angel of Hope
1x Balefire Dragon
1x Baneslayer Angel
1x Blood Speaker
1x Bloodgift Demon
1x Bogardan Hellkite
1x Cho-Arrim Alchemist
1x Devout Witness
1x Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
1x Hammer Mage
1x Hellkite Tyrant
1x Herald of Leshrac
1x Hoard-Smelter Dragon
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
1x Kokusho, the Evening Star
1x Kuro, Pitlord
1x Lord of the Void
1x Magmatic Force
1x Master of Cruelties
1x Resolute Archangel
1x Reya Dawnbringer
1x Rummaging Goblin
1x Rune-Scarred Demon
1x Sepulchral Primordial
1x Scourge of Kher Ridges
1x Steel Hellkite
1x Tariel, Reckoner of Souls
1x Utvara Hellkite
1x Yosei, the Morning Star
1x Entomb
1x Faith's Reward
1x Ghostway
1x Moonlight Bargain
1x Necrologia
1x Vampiric Tutor
Enchantment (6)
1x Animate Dead
1x Dance of the Dead
1x Diabolic Servitude
1x Land Tax
1x Legion's Initiative
1x Necromancy
Artifact (1)
1x Anvil of Bogardan
Land (35)
1x Arid Mesa
1x Badlands
1x Battlefield Forge
1x Bazaar of Baghdad
1x Blood Crypt
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Caves of Koilos
1x Command Tower
1x Eiganjo Castle
1x Exotic Orchard
1x Fetid Heath
1x Godless Shrine
1x Graven Cairns
1x Kor Haven
1x Marsh Flats
4x Mountain
3x Plains
1x Plateau
1x Rugged Prairie
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Scrubland
4x Swamp
1x Tainted Field
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Vesuva
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Ambition's Cost
1x Bitter Revelation
1x Breath of Life
1x Buried Alive
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Dread Return
1x Exhume
1x Faithless Looting
1x False Defeat
1x Imperial Seal
1x Jokulhaups
1x Living Death
1x Reanimate
1x Tormenting Voice
1x Torrent of Souls
1x Unburial Rites
1x Wheel of Fortune
1x Wild Guess
1x Zombify
Planeswalker (1)
1x Liliana of the Veil
THE BREAKDOWN
DISCARD OUTLETS (4)
DISCARD /DRAW OUTLETS (9)
DRAW SPELLS (3)
SEARCH EFFECTS (8)
REANIMATION (13)
CREATURES (playable with Kaalia) (22)
CREATURES (not useable with Kaalia) (4)
PROTECTION (8)
REMOVAL (12)
I run no mana fixing other than Land Tax because everything in the deck is so cheap and the manabase is fairly reliable already,
I don't believe mana ramp is necessary in this deck because I don't want to be dropping fatty creatures too early in a multiplayer game or it will draw much hate
combined with the fact that I would need to devote atleast 8 cards to mana accel to make it any sort of reliable I believe in this case it is better to pack more bombs
and wait a turn or 2 to get going.
The creatures are the best I could find in terms of affecting the game state immeadieatly and/or being a win condition on their own.
Because there is so much reanimation in the deck I believe the deck can support 1-4 creatures that are not playable by Kaalia.
Kaalia will either eat removal or beat face, she is not the primary strategy of the deck but she is very useful and should be used as such.
The idea of discarding creatures when Kaalia requires them in hand to be useful does seem and is counter-synergistic because of this
I run 25 fatties not including anger and concentrate my discard strategy around card draw to ensure I will always have a fatty in hand and in the graveyard when needed.
THE DECK RIGHT NOW
I have been tweaking this deck for a while but I believe more tweaking can still be done to further improve the strategy; more draw spells could be necessary because
running out of gas and being in topdeck mode is a 1 way ticket to a loss, the creature suite could be updated and changed to provide a greater benefit and more or less protection
could be helpful. Haste is also a crucial component for any reanimator, there is only one option for haste in the deck if the creature does not already have it and that is anger,
I had swiftfoot boots and lightning greaves in the deck at one point in time but I believe it is better to have enough ways to guarantee haste reliably
or have a few ways to tutor for it. because anger is tutorable with entomb and buried alive and in a pinch can be found with a real tutor it should be available by midgame if necessary.
There is not much single target removal in my meta or cards like lightning greaves may be in the deck if that was a larger concern.
POWERFUL CARDS I CONSIDERED
I like your list quite a bit however i think 2 postmortem lunge is the right number. Gnaw to the bone seems super underwhelming, there are much better card choices for that slot IMO. and green sun's zenith ?
Thrun + come creature removal instead of so much ramp would probably work better for you IMO. ramping into LD can shut them down but LD + removal is a much more defensive strategy and would work better IMO.
good point, i still think that think twice is a sub par card and should be replaced. possibly a split between dissipate and more removal.
Either O-rings or ramp imo, it's up to what you want to do really those spots seem pretty negotiable.
i would say 24 lands is a good place to start like frox suggested, from there you should tweak it based on how often you see yourself getting land/color screwed and how much mana you need to close a game out.
mainly the speed of the deck when compared to the rest of the meta. 20 lands seems a bit low when a size-able chunk of your deck is 6-8 CC. i think you would benefit from green sun's zenith since save for elesh norn you are mono-G.
asceticism is a questionable main deck choice and without evidence of you testing it any defense you would make for it is merely conjecture, i do understand the uses you believe it has.
I do disagree with what has been said about dungrove, i think he is acceptable in this deck and you have a solid argument for using him. However i think you could make better use of him with a few land adjustments.
Liege seems like overkill to me and having some oblivion rings in his place may serve you better.
as for your sideboard i would suggest creeping corrosion , act of aggression , acidic slime . Grand abolisher seems fine, test it.
Just because you have more pieces to grab 1 of 2 pieces of your combo doesn't mean your odds are THAT good.
Good idea IMO but not as practical as you think it is.
turn 3 tuktuk followed by turn 4 doj or fireball/arc trail seems pretty brutal, it looks like there is plenty of outs to kill tuktuk. with the inclusion of fireball/arc trail you can gain a decent amount of recursion for chandra's phoenix but more burn might be needed for that to work.
I didn't like all the weenie creatures, sure they give you CA when you wipe the board but anything your opponent plays at that point can beat a 1/1 myr sire and a 3/3 flying bird token isn't a fast enough clock at turn 5-6 without a Worldslayer or Angelic destiny around.
Anyway i have to get out of here but here is a super rough version of the list I've been toying with.
3x Chandra's Phoenix
3x Grim Lavamancer
4x Immolating Souleater
4x goblin guide
4x Tuktuk the Explorer
3x stormblood berserker
10x Mountain
8x Plains
4x Arid Mesa
1x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Evolving Wilds
3x Angelic Destiny
3x Oblivion Ring
Sorcery (9)
3x Arc Trail
4x Day of Judgment
2x Fireball
3x Dismember
3x Act of Aggression
3x Timely Reinforcements
3x Celestial Purge