I feel like High Tide can really be abused, as you can cast it twice in a turn off God-Eternal Kefnet ability.
Long-Term Plans also seems like a good way to setup the top of your library.
There is a little bit that the deck isn't all that proactive with the extra turns themselves. If you look at your instants they are very reactive, so it's not like you can get a lot of value during your extra turns with these. You'll always be able to do some stuff, you know cast some artifacts and even a creature or two, but it's not like busted turns, even if you do get a couple of them in a row.
You could definitely look at exchanging some of the instants that are disruption for card draw instead.
For example AEtherspouts doesn't work with God-Eternal Kefnet and not useful during extra turns.
I definitely have noticed that I'm not doing too much during those extra turns, especially if I'm not drawing into anything else.
Jace will be added for sure, as well as Trinket Mage and Muddle the Mixture, possibly Isochron for the reasons stated above. Should I cut some of the reactive cards for more card draw then?
My thoughts are that blue is known for being control, so I need to have many counters, but this deck may be different and not need as many?
Nice Guerte! Yes I like those cards too. I've been following your list for a while now. While I enjoy combo, I certainly enjoy the more reanimate/cast big spells kinda game, just personal preference. Really love what you've done with Gonti, excited to see what you come up with!
Thanks! Glad you enjoy the deck. Hopefully I’ll have a formal update this weekend, after I do a bit more testing.
I have also been testing a different build of Gonti that focuses less on assembling a winning combo and focuses more on reanimating to gain value. Hopefully I will have concrete changes soon enough.
This will be a fairly quick review. After scouring the spoiled cards, the only card I saw that could be really good in here is Finale of Devastation. It’s another creature tutor that also searches the graveyard. It also acts as a huge pump spell if X=10 or greater and gives creatures haste as well. This will make another great finisher, and it will be tested over Sylvan Awakening.
I'm not going to go into too much detail at the moment, as it's sort of late and I'm a bit tired. I've decided to cut some of the "cuter" items to go a little bit more into the Stax aspect for the deck. I still won't be adding in MLD as I am not a fan of that particular strategy. Some of the changes you may question, so if you want specifics, feel free to ask and I will answer.
For now, it's just the main list that is updated. This weekend I should hopefully have the rest fully updated. It's been awhile since I've posted so I figured I would update this list to what I'm currently playing on MTGO, and what I will be playing in paper once I get a few more cards.
Ravnica Allegiance is out, and while it contained the Gruul Guild, it didn't contain too many goodies for our deck. In fact, there's only one card that I'm considering, and even then, it may not make the final cut.
Rhythm of the Wild: Omnath is a pretty expensive commander, so we don't want him to get countered on his first cast, let alone any other cast. Currently, we only run Cavern of Souls as a way to prevent him from being countered, and it can only be for one creature type, and only once per turn. This card would make all of our creatures uncounterable, and give all of our nontoken creatures riot. I haven't had the chance to test it out yet, and I'm unsure what I would even cut for it. Chaos Warp comes to mind, but it has better utility than this enchantment, so we will see if I even go through with this card.
I have recently reacquired the deck in paper, and am running the exact same list as on page one, except Mishra's Workshop and Bazaar of Baghdad are currently basic Mountains; however, I am running the main list as exact on MTGO.
So, Blightsteel hasn't seen the battlfield in quite some time. He's usually only pitched to Daretti, and is rarely tutored for with Kuldotha Forgemaster. He's lost a lot of the appeal since removing Lightning Greaves (which I haven't necessarily missed), so he's super susceptible to exiling/steal effects. Chaos Wand is kind of just a cute card: it works great when paired with Paradox Engine and enough mana rocks to go infinite; other times it isn't that great. And Slobad is mainly used as a sac outlet, but is easily removed and cannot be recurred, which is basically the same reasons I cut him a long time ago.
In their places, I am testing out Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon, as the last few times I've played in paper, everyone was running 3+ colored decks, and these would help hose their mana base and let us continue on with our gameplan. I was really hesitant about removing Crucible in the first place, simply because we lose the reusability of our utility lands like Strip Mine/Wasteland and Command Beacon. We also lost the ability to pitch lands that we may need later on when we lost it, so I decided to add it back in. I may or may not add fetch lands back in at a later date; they aren't really necessary, but they can help reshuffle to get a new look at the top, and also thin out lands so we can draw into gas.
I will let everyone know how the testing goes, and when I adopt or abandon these changes.
1. Lifeline's Oracle text has an intervening "if" clause (C.R. 108.1), indicating it checks whether "another creature" (than the one that dies) "is on the battlefield" both when it triggers and when it resolves (C.R. 603.4). Once it resolves, it sets up a delayed triggered ability to return the card it refers to to the battlefield (C.R. 603.7); it doesn't matter whether a creature is on the battlefield when that delayed triggered ability triggers or when it resolves.
2. Lifeline's ability will trigger even if the only two or more creatures on the battlefield die at the same time; the ability checks the state of the game before the event of leaving the battlefield to determine whether it triggers (C.R. 603.6c, 603.10a, 603.10a, 603.4). However, that ability will check again whether a creature is on the battlefield as that ability would resolve (C.R. 603.4, 608.2a).
3. Assuming you sacrifice a creature to pay for Zuran Orb's ability while Wrath of God is on the stack: Provided the creature sacrificed this way dies while "another creature is on the battlefield" (no matter who controls or owns the latter creature), Lifeline's ability will trigger, go on the stack above Wrath of God and Zuran Orb's ability, and get to resolve before both (C.R. 405.2, 116.4, 602.2b, 601.2i, 116.5).
1) Let's say there are 2 creatures out. One dies, Lifeline triggers since there is still one on the battlefield, but before the first trigger resolves, the last creature dies. Lifeline won't trigger for that one, but will the first trigger resolve, setting up the delayed triggered, or will it fizzle since there is no creature left?
2) I asked this same question on the Judge Chat, and they said it wouldn't trigger, and even on MTGO, it doesn't trigger. Any idea why that is if what you are referencing says it would?
3) I don't think Zuran Orb is the correct card you're thinking of, but I understand where you are coming from.
So I think I’m understanding this card fairly well, but I am looking for some clarification.
1) Beings that it has an intervening-if clause, it checks things twice: when it first would trigger, and then when it resolves. So, in order for it to trigger in the first place, when a creature dies, there has to be another creature on the battlefield, correct? And if that condition is met, when it resolves, if there are no longer any other creatures on the battlefield, it won’t resolve and the creature won’t return, correct?
2) If a board wipe resolves and all creatures die at the same time, then Lifeline won’t even trigger due to there not being another creature on the battlefield, correct?
3) Same scenario as 2, but before the wipe resolves, I sacrifice all my creatures one at a time, and the wipe resolves. My creatures return, and all others don’t, correct?
Are there any kind of possible interactions I’m missing?
Have you ever considered using Lifeline? Yes, it works for your opponent as well, but if you have an exile effect, such as Faceless Butcher/Duplicant, you can get rid of creatures permanently, so your Lifeline becomes so much better. You can also save your entire board from board wipes with it as well.
Lifeline is a really cool card, my major problem with it is my meta though. There are just way too many creature based graveyard centric decks, that would benefit a lot from it.
Another card i've been thinking about is Minion Reflector, but i feel like 5+2+ a creature/reanimation spell is a lot of mana. Have you tried it and can you advise me (not) to run it?
I do agree that it isn't the best when facing other graveyard-focused decks, but it is definitely one of my favorite cards to play. One of the coolest things to do is cast a boardwipe, hold priority and sac all of your creatures one by one, and then let the wipe resolve. Since your creatures died while there was another on the field, they will still return and everyone else's wont since they died at the same time.
I have not played Minion Reflector myself, but I have seen it played in other Gonti decks. I am very hesitant to play it because of just what you said: it costs 5 to play it when it first comes out, which is a fairly significant investment in the first place. Then, if you don't have the mana to play anything else, it becomes susceptible to removal before you may even get the chance to get any use out of it. If you do have the mana available, it costs 2 + whatever creature you are casting, so either way, it's going to cost quite a bit.
Lifeline, however, costs the same as Reflector, requires no additional mana investment, and if you have a sac outlet readily available, you can get use out of it the first turn it is played, and every turn after, including opponent's.
Have you ever considered using Lifeline? Yes, it works for your opponent as well, but if you have an exile effect, such as Faceless Butcher/Duplicant, you can get rid of creatures permanently, so your Lifeline becomes so much better. You can also save your entire board from board wipes with it as well.
I used to run an Omnath deck, and I can tell you that it's not enough to run just ramp spells and token doublers. If you want your deck to actually do stuff, you'll need a TON of card draw and an actual game plan that doesn't revolve around Omnath.
I currently run an Omnath deck myself, and I would have to disagree with this statement. My deck is centered around Landfall, so having a bunch of ramp spells is what the deck wants. Token doublers are just the icing on the cake.
I agree with some of your cuts, such as Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, Burn from Within, and Jaya's Immolating Inferno, as they don't really help the deck out in any way, besides being sub-par removal. However, Ranger's Path, Goblin Bombardment, and Boundless Realms are core cards to the deck. Path is just another Explosive Vegetation, except it can grab duals, Bombardment is a necessary sac outlet for the Elemental tokens that will help deal those last few points of damage, and Boundless is probably the best ramp spell of the deck since it can get many lands at once to trigger Omnath.
If you want to get serious about this deck and do a little investing, I would suggest getting the dual lands and anything that grants extra land drops, as having multiple land drops in a turn can really make the deck bonkers.
I definitely have noticed that I'm not doing too much during those extra turns, especially if I'm not drawing into anything else.
Jace will be added for sure, as well as Trinket Mage and Muddle the Mixture, possibly Isochron for the reasons stated above. Should I cut some of the reactive cards for more card draw then?
My thoughts are that blue is known for being control, so I need to have many counters, but this deck may be different and not need as many?
What are some cards that would be safe cuts?
Looking for feedback on cards that aren't needed and ones that should be in here.
4 God-Eternal Kefnet
//Creatures (5):
2 Baral, Chief of Compliance
2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Spellseeker
3 Trinket Mage
//Artifacts (18):
0 Chrome Mox
0 Everflowing Chalice
0 Mana Crypt
0 Mox Diamond
0 Mox Opal
1 Mana Vault
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
2 Cursed Totem
2 Fellwar Stone
2 Grim Monolith
2 Isochron Scepter
2 Sapphire Medallion
2 Scroll Rack
3 Worn Powerstone
4 Thran Dynamo
5 Gilded Lotus
5 Paradox Engine
//Sorceries (16):
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Personal Tutor
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
2 Merchant Scroll
2 Reshape
2 Transmute Artifact
3 Manifold Insights
3 Pieces of the Puzzle
3 Timetwister
3 Windfall
5 Capture of Jingzhou
5 Temporal Manipulation
5 Time Warp
6 Recurring Insight
7 Temporal Mastery
0 Pact of Negation
1 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Dispel
1 Flusterstorm
1 High Tide
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Swan Song
2 Counterspell
2 Cyclonic Rift
2 Delay
2 Dramatic Reversal
2 Impulse
2 Mana Drain
2 Muddle the Mixture
2 Narset's Reversal
3 Frantic Search
3 Intuition
3 Long-Term Plans
3 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Whir of Invention
4 Fact or Fiction
5 Force of Will
7 Nexus of Fate
//Enchantments (5):
1 Mystic Remora
2 Copy Artifact
3 Back to Basics
3 Rhystic Study
5 Future Sight
4 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
//Lands (30):
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Flooded Strand
1 Inventors' Fair
24 Island
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
Thanks! Glad you enjoy the deck. Hopefully I’ll have a formal update this weekend, after I do a bit more testing.
There was quite a few goodies to be had in WAR. Unfortunately, we can’t play them all. With that being said, the following new cards will be tested:
Kaya’s Ghostform
Finale of Eternity
I have also been testing a different build of Gonti that focuses less on assembling a winning combo and focuses more on reanimating to gain value. Hopefully I will have concrete changes soon enough.
This will be a fairly quick review. After scouring the spoiled cards, the only card I saw that could be really good in here is Finale of Devastation. It’s another creature tutor that also searches the graveyard. It also acts as a huge pump spell if X=10 or greater and gives creatures haste as well. This will make another great finisher, and it will be tested over Sylvan Awakening.
Did you join just to post that? Lol.
But seriously, thanks for pointing that out. I was missing Spell Pierce and Gush.
OUT:
Blightsteel Colossus
Chaos Wand
Kuldotha Forgemaster
Mountain x5
Oracle's Vault
Quicksmith Genius
Scrap Trawler
Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer
Thopter Assembly
Urza's Mine
Urza's Power Plant
Urza's Tower
IN:
Arid Mesa
Blinkmoth Nexus
Blood Moon
Bloodstained Mire
Crucible of Worlds
Ensnaring Bridge
Inkmoth Nexus
Lion's Eye Diamond
Magus of the Moon
Mishra's Factory
Oblivion Stone
Scalding Tarn
Stranglehold
Tangle Wire
Ward of Bones
Wooded Foothills
I'm not going to go into too much detail at the moment, as it's sort of late and I'm a bit tired. I've decided to cut some of the "cuter" items to go a little bit more into the Stax aspect for the deck. I still won't be adding in MLD as I am not a fan of that particular strategy. Some of the changes you may question, so if you want specifics, feel free to ask and I will answer.
For now, it's just the main list that is updated. This weekend I should hopefully have the rest fully updated. It's been awhile since I've posted so I figured I would update this list to what I'm currently playing on MTGO, and what I will be playing in paper once I get a few more cards.
Daretti’s Scrap Heap
Join and let the discussions commence!
Ravnica Allegiance is out, and while it contained the Gruul Guild, it didn't contain too many goodies for our deck. In fact, there's only one card that I'm considering, and even then, it may not make the final cut.
Rhythm of the Wild: Omnath is a pretty expensive commander, so we don't want him to get countered on his first cast, let alone any other cast. Currently, we only run Cavern of Souls as a way to prevent him from being countered, and it can only be for one creature type, and only once per turn. This card would make all of our creatures uncounterable, and give all of our nontoken creatures riot. I haven't had the chance to test it out yet, and I'm unsure what I would even cut for it. Chaos Warp comes to mind, but it has better utility than this enchantment, so we will see if I even go through with this card.
I have recently reacquired the deck in paper, and am running the exact same list as on page one, except Mishra's Workshop and Bazaar of Baghdad are currently basic Mountains; however, I am running the main list as exact on MTGO.
Currently, I am testing the following changes:
OUT:
Blightsteel Colossus
Chaos Wand
Slobad, Goblin Tinkerer
IN:
Blood Moon
Crucible of Worlds
Magus of the Moon
So, Blightsteel hasn't seen the battlfield in quite some time. He's usually only pitched to Daretti, and is rarely tutored for with Kuldotha Forgemaster. He's lost a lot of the appeal since removing Lightning Greaves (which I haven't necessarily missed), so he's super susceptible to exiling/steal effects. Chaos Wand is kind of just a cute card: it works great when paired with Paradox Engine and enough mana rocks to go infinite; other times it isn't that great. And Slobad is mainly used as a sac outlet, but is easily removed and cannot be recurred, which is basically the same reasons I cut him a long time ago.
In their places, I am testing out Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon, as the last few times I've played in paper, everyone was running 3+ colored decks, and these would help hose their mana base and let us continue on with our gameplan. I was really hesitant about removing Crucible in the first place, simply because we lose the reusability of our utility lands like Strip Mine/Wasteland and Command Beacon. We also lost the ability to pitch lands that we may need later on when we lost it, so I decided to add it back in. I may or may not add fetch lands back in at a later date; they aren't really necessary, but they can help reshuffle to get a new look at the top, and also thin out lands so we can draw into gas.
I will let everyone know how the testing goes, and when I adopt or abandon these changes.
Future Testing:
Endless Atlas
Meteor Golem
I'm thinking about testing out Endless Atlas for some additional continuous card draw, and Meteor Golem as a pseudo-Spine of Ish Sah.
1) Let's say there are 2 creatures out. One dies, Lifeline triggers since there is still one on the battlefield, but before the first trigger resolves, the last creature dies. Lifeline won't trigger for that one, but will the first trigger resolve, setting up the delayed triggered, or will it fizzle since there is no creature left?
2) I asked this same question on the Judge Chat, and they said it wouldn't trigger, and even on MTGO, it doesn't trigger. Any idea why that is if what you are referencing says it would?
3) I don't think Zuran Orb is the correct card you're thinking of, but I understand where you are coming from.
So I think I’m understanding this card fairly well, but I am looking for some clarification.
1) Beings that it has an intervening-if clause, it checks things twice: when it first would trigger, and then when it resolves. So, in order for it to trigger in the first place, when a creature dies, there has to be another creature on the battlefield, correct? And if that condition is met, when it resolves, if there are no longer any other creatures on the battlefield, it won’t resolve and the creature won’t return, correct?
2) If a board wipe resolves and all creatures die at the same time, then Lifeline won’t even trigger due to there not being another creature on the battlefield, correct?
3) Same scenario as 2, but before the wipe resolves, I sacrifice all my creatures one at a time, and the wipe resolves. My creatures return, and all others don’t, correct?
Are there any kind of possible interactions I’m missing?
I do agree that it isn't the best when facing other graveyard-focused decks, but it is definitely one of my favorite cards to play. One of the coolest things to do is cast a boardwipe, hold priority and sac all of your creatures one by one, and then let the wipe resolve. Since your creatures died while there was another on the field, they will still return and everyone else's wont since they died at the same time.
I have not played Minion Reflector myself, but I have seen it played in other Gonti decks. I am very hesitant to play it because of just what you said: it costs 5 to play it when it first comes out, which is a fairly significant investment in the first place. Then, if you don't have the mana to play anything else, it becomes susceptible to removal before you may even get the chance to get any use out of it. If you do have the mana available, it costs 2 + whatever creature you are casting, so either way, it's going to cost quite a bit.
Lifeline, however, costs the same as Reflector, requires no additional mana investment, and if you have a sac outlet readily available, you can get use out of it the first turn it is played, and every turn after, including opponent's.
Have you ever considered using Lifeline? Yes, it works for your opponent as well, but if you have an exile effect, such as Faceless Butcher/Duplicant, you can get rid of creatures permanently, so your Lifeline becomes so much better. You can also save your entire board from board wipes with it as well.
I currently run an Omnath deck myself, and I would have to disagree with this statement. My deck is centered around Landfall, so having a bunch of ramp spells is what the deck wants. Token doublers are just the icing on the cake.
I agree with some of your cuts, such as Mwonvuli Acid-Moss, Burn from Within, and Jaya's Immolating Inferno, as they don't really help the deck out in any way, besides being sub-par removal. However, Ranger's Path, Goblin Bombardment, and Boundless Realms are core cards to the deck. Path is just another Explosive Vegetation, except it can grab duals, Bombardment is a necessary sac outlet for the Elemental tokens that will help deal those last few points of damage, and Boundless is probably the best ramp spell of the deck since it can get many lands at once to trigger Omnath.
I would definitely cut the Moss, Burn, and Inferno to add in Titania, Protector of Argoth and Rishkar's Expertise, as those cards are too good to not run, and he already has Nissa, Vital Force in the deck. I would also add in Ramunap Excavator in order to access your graveyard for more lands.
If you want to get serious about this deck and do a little investing, I would suggest getting the dual lands and anything that grants extra land drops, as having multiple land drops in a turn can really make the deck bonkers.