I tested Prime Speaker Vannifar in my Derevi list. I was satisfied with her inclusion. While I don't think I'd ever tutor for her or Captain Sisay, she represents a solid value engine and is one of those cards opponents must answer or face a quick gg. Being able to put down a Glen Elendra and Spark Double or a tandem/trifecta of GAIV and Sakashima/Spark Double in one turn is a strong play. There is also a double Archon line. She's less efficient than Birthing Pod, and summoning sickness is a serious liability, but she's still a great card.
Saw a thread on another Azusa list. It got me thinking about my old flame Azusa. And I was inspired to revisit this, my old Azusa list. Fixed her up. I ditched most of the stax elements in favor of more speed. It's fast. It can goldfish a T2 win (against 3 opponents) with a perfect hand. I think that's the best you can do by turning sideways. A T1 or T2 Stone-Seeder can lead to that rare T2-T3 win. Mostly averages T5. I'm thinking of taking her for a spin at the LGS.
Been a really long time since I bumped this thread. I've still been tweaking my Derevi Prison variant. I've been focusing on trying to overload the board in one early turn through Pod/Survival/Vannifar. It's been a pretty good strategy so far. Much more successful than adding a few more taxers or stax pieces. It's felt like my winrate has doubled after changing around my list.
With Ramunap Excavator, Azusa has a fun new toy. Fetch or Strip/Wasteland and Excavator is going to generate serious landfall synergy with Titania, Nissa, Zendikars Roil, Rampaging Baloths, Lotus Cobra. I streamlined my old list and cut out the Eldrazi. There are a ton of green tutors to get to Ramunap, Titania, and Craterhoof. Counted 12 ways to get to a T2 or earlier Azusa, so it's borderline competitive.
Played 6 games with Derevi landfall versus Zur, Maelstrom Wanderer, and Breya. First game had a nice start and achieved board control and was on the way to what I thought was a win after a Bane of Progress cleared the board, but Zealous Conscripts stole my 16/16 Bane and killed me. Wanderer went on to win the game. Second game I won after a T1 Timetwister by Zur netted me 2 taxers and Breya played a Magus of the Moon, which didn't bother me as I had lots of nonland mana sources. After dinner we decided to give Revelation-style EDH a shot; everyone played with their cards exposed. Breya showed Necro in his opening hand with loads of accelerants and rode Necro to a win. The next few games were generally long, protracted, and extremely grindy affairs. The last game took at least 3 hours. A large part of that was due to Planar Chaos stalling the game and then having Stranglehold, Null Rod, Winter Orb, and Contamination + Bitterblossom in play with all creatures dead and no other sources of mana. What I took away from the experience was seeing everyone's hands made it incredibly difficult for combo to go off without the resources to back up a win: Telepathy is a fantastic card. Having other players saving removal/disruption to stop the combo player from going off gives a stax player additional time to gain board control. I cut out some of the more inefficient cards and added: Rootwater Thief, Lightning Greaves, Hall of the Bandit Lord, Telepathy, Cataclym, Brainstorm, Timetwister, and Mystical Tutor. Basically beefed up the draw and control aspects
GPash: PoK's ban was devastating to my tempo list. I tried Seedborn Muse with Alchemists' Refuge as a replacement but there was a significant drop in efficiency. Thus I switched over to a landfall/stax approach. As detailed in the second post of this thread I've been developing it over the last year and I'm liking it a lot. I can achieve a heavier board presence quicker, at the cost of slightly lesser card quality. Landfall is one of the most efficient engines I've played around with.
XeroxedFool: The current list I'm running is the landfall list on the second post of this thread. The other list in the opening post is dismantled.
I played 4x games last Friday against Zur, Leovold, and Breya. The one game I won I managed to assert board control with multiple tax pieces in the midgame; with Leovold out, Breya's Stranglehold, and 2x Glen Elendra's in play no one was going to win except with creature beats. I tried Knight of the Reliquary and Stone-Seeder Hierophant but those are too slow and lack the board impact I'm looking for. They did very little when I played them. I face a ton of removal, so I've decided to increase the amount of graveyard recursion by adding Academy Ruins and Eternal Witness to get back engine pieces and taxers.
I played 2 games with Leovold vs Breya, Leovold, and Zur last night. Still trying to figure out what I want to do with Leovold; I'm thinking a Paradox Engine build around creatures and artifacts would be fun. Zur won the first game. Breya took the second game on the back of Paradox Engine and Nim Deathmantle. The third and last game I played with Derevi landfall vs Leovold, Zur, and Breya. Leovold won the roll and went first; I was last - that's the worst place to be for a stax deck. My first few turns went T1 land go, T2 land into Thorn of Amethyst; it resolved so I was feeling happy. T3 City of Traitors into Rhystic Study - Zur Negates it. T4 Tap City, play a fetch, sac city, crack fetch get a dual. Play Derevi, untap a land, play Null Rod - Breya Forces it. T5 Play a land, Play Glen Elendra Archmage - Leovold Forces it. I played a Glowrider next and it died to a Pongify. The game continued on, with the table working on containing Leovold who was riding his T2 Sylvan Library and Scroll Rack to a dominant board. Around T10 I casted a Cyclonic Rift overloaded on Zur's EoT - Breya fired an overloaded Rift in response. End result both Leovold and Breya were completely tapped out, Zur had 5 lands open. My turn I played Sol Ring, tapped it, Derevi untapping Sol Ring, and Tezzeret. Activated Tezzeret to get a Winter Orb. Played Aven Mindcensor. It was the table against me at this point. Tangle Wire eventually closes the game. Leovold's last turn, 3 life, I could see he tried to set up for a win with Lotus Cobra and Fetch into Basalt, Power Artifact, Exsanguinate but he did not have enough mana that turn - he ended it by showing his Power and Exsanguinate to the table. I played Sakashima and swung his way with a 3/3 token, Derevi. He blocked the 3/3 with his Lotus Cobra. I untapped my Sol Ring and his City of Brass. I played Tangle Wire and Leovold died on his upkeep. Zur played Necro but didn't get anything useful. He knocked out my Winter Orb but Breya couldn't clear the board or win so I won next turn on combat. Tezzeret was my MVP. Zur drew way too many lands that game of his 26 land count he had more than I on my 35 land count. Leovold's City of Brass was a factor late game. I dinged him for 1 earlier, and the last untap on City killed him with Tangle Wire out.
I'm going to put back in Rising Waters. Hokori is never, ever going to last long enough without protection in the form of taxers or Glen Elendra. In my creature-light meta Stasis could be worth another look. Trading a full untap step for multiple turns of damage can add up against 3 players who like to hurt themselves. Works with Sakashima and Sun Titan. I'd guess 2-3 more cards which can support Stasis would be sufficient.
Played around 6 games last night with Derevi landfall against Leovold, Zur, and Prossh/Leovold. The addition of 2 clones did relatively nothing sadly. First game went to Zur with his new Isochron Sceptor with Dramatic Reversal into Exsanguinate. Second game was a long affair where I eventually grinded down the table with tax pieces and finished with Craterhoof. After dinner a lot more removal and disruption made sure I never had more than 1 taxer in play. Leovold by himself nullified a lot of my draw engines; it's a major pain dealing with him. When he is in play bad things happen. I've considered my options. The design paths I see are: add more wipes/creature hate, focus more on resource denial, or add more instant speed disruption/control. After some thought, I added City of Traitors, Crystal Vein, Skyshroud Ranger, Mana Breach, Trinisphere, and Living Plane while taking out Alchemists Refuge, Evolving Wilds, Emeria Shepherd, Elesh Norn, Phyrexian Metamorph, and Recruiter of the Guard. Hoping to get in Mindlock Orb, Tangle Wire, and Mishra's Workshop for faster starts and to buy more time.
I can recount my experiences for you. When I took Animar and played my friends' UBX combo/control decks I got my head kicked in; Animar was extremely susceptible to wipes. Azusa also had problems but she was still winning a few games here and there. The big problem with UBX combo is it's significantly faster than creature-based builds and if you want to compete in developed metas you need ways to slow them down while taking control of the board. Animar just had too high a density of creatures and wasn't able to hang with the faster combo decks or slug it out with more control oriented builds.
With Paradox Engine out and a mana dork + Mox Diamond + Mana Vault you could probably play out your entire hand THIS turn. As opposed to PoK which requires you to pass your turn. There is simply no comparison. Paradox Engine is insane; it's a perfect fit for Leovold.
Paradox Engine is not quite on the power level of Ad Nauseam, Doomsday, or Hermit Druid but it's twice as powerful as Prophet of Kruphix; Paradox Engine is a very powerful enabler with which a board can be amplified to quickly unload a hand. With some kind of draw/tutor engine it's game.
Some recent changes I made to my landfall list were the additions of: Dakra Mystic, Sakashima the Impostor, Phyrexian Metamorph, Chancellor of the Annex, Lodestone Golem, Sunscape Familiar, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard, and Alchemist's Refuge. Despite my intention to move more towards landfall the list appears to gravitate towards more taxing affects and engines. For instance Nissa, Vital Force is a landfall oriented card but its cost and non-creature status, in addition to being completely negated by Leovold, make it a poor fit for my meta. Dakra Mystic is so much cheaper. The clones I added to reduce our vulnerability to wheel effects with Leovold in play want more creature targets like Lodestone Golem and Chancellor, thus they are in. And in case Puzzlebox comes down I want a way to still play, therefore Alchemist's Refuge. Yisan on the field is also insurance against Puzzlebox or a wheel effect + Leovold. Sunscape Familiar gets our stuff in play quicker.
I played 4x games last Friday against Zur, Leovold, and Breya. The one game I won I managed to assert board control with multiple tax pieces in the midgame; with Leovold out, Breya's Stranglehold, and 2x Glen Elendra's in play no one was going to win except with creature beats. I tried Knight of the Reliquary and Stone-Seeder Hierophant but those are too slow and lack the board impact I'm looking for. They did very little when I played them. I face a ton of removal, so I've decided to increase the amount of graveyard recursion by adding Academy Ruins and Eternal Witness to get back engine pieces and taxers.
I'm going to put back in Rising Waters. Hokori is never, ever going to last long enough without protection in the form of taxers or Glen Elendra. In my creature-light meta Stasis could be worth another look. Trading a full untap step for multiple turns of damage can add up against 3 players who like to hurt themselves. Works with Sakashima and Sun Titan. I'd guess 2-3 more cards which can support Stasis would be sufficient.