Have you considered Thoughtseize et al. as a proactive way to pick off problems like artifacts/enchantments or counterspells before they can affect you? In my experience, pinpoint discard is underrated in the format. I wouldn't pack more than a couple, but they're more versatile than most people realize. On the other hand, since your goal is to put the whole table into topdeck mode they might not be as good. Having played Pox in Legacy somewhat casually I can attest to how frustrating it is for someone to draw and immediately play something like Jace, the Mind Sculptor while you're staring at Thoughtseize in your hand.
Torpor Orb might be okay. It looks like you run only three cards it would blank, but Enter the Battlefield Dragon Highlander is a thing. I ran it for a long time but added in a few too many ETB triggers which severely weakens the card. Dying to combat damage when you had to cast Gary with it out is miserable.
There's also Last Laugh. It ain't good, but it's fun. You'll end up killing yourself sometimes but that's the cost of doing business in MBC.
First, if you don't want Erebos vulnerable to toughness-lowering effects, most forced-sac effects, and exile effects, Necro takes your devotion up to 4.
Typically speaking, you don't want to play both Erebos and Necro at the same time because of your second point about it being somewhat redundant. There are rare circumstances where it's the right play, but most often I sandbag the Skull until I need to deploy it. Also, frankly speaking, I don't give a damn what happens to Erebos if I can just resolve Necro.
Secondly, it's slightly redundant. Only slightly, since it's obviously much more efficient in terms of mana, but the tempo loss can kill. Obviously having two options is good, but having Necro means you can't draw cards normally. Which is not normally a big deal, this isn't something where it's dealbreaking like Symbiotic Deployment (Dear Symbiotic Deployment, you are neither Necro nor Azusa, please stop pretending.), but again, you're not gaining nearly as much from Necro than you are normally.
I agree that Necro isn't nearly as good here as it is in, say, Zur or black Sidisi or even Chainer, but the effect is too powerful to ignore. While not to the same degree, it's sort of like saying you shouldn't run Counterspell just because you're running Mana Drain. You want both.
Necropotence is an odd omission, but speaking as someone who plays Erebos I can almost understand why. I spend a lot of my life and mana activating Erebos to dig into my deck, and there are times when I topdeck Necro and it's dead because I'm so low on life. However, there are also times when I'm behind and it catapults me back into the game. Same with Ad Nauseam. They're two cards I'd rather have and not need than need and not have.
I agree that Toxic Deluge also merits inclusion. It can cost a lot of life and take out Erebos should he be active but the mana efficiency and ability to take out indestructibles and other problematic creatures is nice.
As for cuts, I think Skull of Ramos is the weakest ramp card in the deck, both Worst Fears and Mindslaver seem redundant (one effect to tutor up seems good but two is overkill), Ill-Gotten Gains seems counterintuitive in a deck heavily focused on discard, and Sever the Bloodline seems slooow.
Stronghold has a low opportunity cost. Are there times it mattered that it wasn't a Swamp? I don't often activate it myself until the late game but since there's such a small risk associated with running it that I think it's fine.
Cutting Seer for Feeder is a mistake, in my opinion. Scry 1 is a much, much better ability than a measly +1/+1 counter. Being able to dig for answers or a win condition is great, especially with Overlord.
Not sure what your current list is as the choices you're talking about didn't seem to line up with the primer. Regardless, my $0.02:
The lists in the OP (sorted by type and function) are up to date, I've just slacked off on adding analysis for them in the primer itself.
Even with the errata so that it hits all opponents, I think if I wanted this kind of effect I would just up my mana rock count and play Winter Orb, as the webMana Web still allows them to cast something for any amount of mana once per untap. Winter / Static Orbs and the like are far more brutal.
Actually, Winter Orb is one of my biggest fears when playing this deck. I don't see it often, but someone dropping it on me when I'm tapped out and don't have Coffers available is pretty much game over for me. It's difficult to break the parity with it like, say, Teferi or decks playing a ton of rocks can. The advantage with Web is that it's always on, no investment needed, but it's less of a lock card against fair decks than it is a way to combat blue-based control decks. Web, in theory, greatly reduces the ability for reactive control decks to interact with the table which, in theory, allows us to develop our resources and find a win condition somewhat unhindered. Being weak against decks playing cards at sorcery speed is less relevant since our deck is very, very good at beating those decks.
Necromancy or Dance of the Dead are going as well.
I ran these initially as well due to our playgroup being wrath after wrath after wrath, but came upon a similar conclusion. Nowadays I run a single Reanimate for targeted, single-purpose reanimation as its too efficient not to. I do run the following spells which can act as reanimation effects but aren't necessarily single target or single purpose, however.
Maybe some of these could be considerations for you.
Reanimating Crypt Ghast or Nirkana Revenant for two mana just feels so, so good, though. I've won games because of surprising my opponents with the explosive mana production the cheap reanimation spells can generate. There's also the obvious value plays of nabbing a Mulldrifter, Eternal Witness, Reclamation Sage, etc. They're worth running in my opinion, I just think three effects is too many here.
I've tried many of the cards on your list (Yawgmoth's Will is absurd!) but since I only run five creatures many of the value reanimator engines/cards aren't very efficient here. The undercosted one shot effects ultimately do more work here. I got my reanimation fix out when I played Chainer, Dementia Master.
I like this thread. All this recent discussion regarding what a MBC deck looks like in 2019 has invigorated me.
Attacking the Azusa player's card advantage is absolutely the correct play. You can't control their topdecks and they're going to find a way to ramp regardless, but well timed removal in response to Rishkar's Expertise or Shamanic Revelation or whatever will slow them down, which works in your favor. Alternatively - get this - you could play Ankh of Mishra to make vomiting out lands painful and thus the player becomes more susceptible to your drains.
You should play Mind Twist. It's a hoot. There is nothing more satisfying that Twisting the blue mage for their hand after they tap out. Mindslicer is fantastic, of course, but sometimes you need surgical precision.
Glad I'm not the only one who enjoys the politicking of MBC "this isn't the threat you care about - go pick on someone else while i'm silently plotting all of your deaths".
It's really fitting for the deck. I also like to make deals and barter removal ("I'll take out that Serra Ascendant beating you down but you've gotta take out that Song of the Dryads on my commander") to advance the game plan of attrition. Deals with the devil rarely work out in your opponents' favor and yet they continue to make them.
What's the opinion on Mana Web? I slotted it in before to do some preliminary testing online but then lost all my prototype lists due to mechanical failure and it must've fallen through the cracks. From what little experience I had with it, it performed okay? It's not quite stax and affects "fair" decks that were just going to cast a single big dumb spell on their turn anyway less than it does reactive control decks. Largely preventing them from advancing their board and interacting with you is an excellent bind to place them in. Whatever they choose, the game is prolonged, and your inevitability grows. At least, that's the theory, anyway. At this point my deck is pretty mean so I might as well go all in.
Phyrexian Totem has already sealed a game for me by taking out a Jace, the Mind Sculptor after a board wipe cleared out the creatures protecting him so I'm glad it's back in the list. Sometimes pet cards are also useful.
With some testing and thinking, I believe Font of Agonies is a bit too slow. Typically, it removes one or two relevant creatures at 7 or 9 mana respectively, which is pretty inefficient, even if it's spent over a few turns. It rewards you for doing what you want to do with this deck, but unfortunately takes too long to come online to be effective. I also had the miserable experience of topdecking it when virtually any other removal spell would've saved me. Oh well. It's a cool card, though.
Necromancy or Dance of the Dead are going as well. Three reanimation cards in a deck with few targets, even if they'rereallygood, is probably too much. Two is less than three, and the name is better, but I'm not sure if Dance is the better choice since Necromancy can also be used in an emergency to find a blocker or steal a dead ETB critter at instant speed.
Any thoughts on what to use for the open slot? I have three target spot removal spells and two edicts which is probably enough already, so I want to branch out a bit. I'm somewhat hesitant to try Bolas's Citadel. Even though I really like the card I just don't see it being too good here, and I feel pretty confident in my tutor/draw package. Honestly, I might add in another life total attrition/win condition card. I feel pretty light on them at the moment as there are the occasional games where I durdle around and take longer to kill my opponents than is necessary. Drain Life? Profane Command? Polluted Bonds? Army of the Damned? There are a lot of options, ranging from excellent to cute to terrible.
I'm not typically one to care about bling (I have aesthetic preferences for cards based on art, that's about it) but I recently obtained the following from my FLGS that combines one of my favorite cards with my favorite counting tool:
My only complaint is that it doesn't have enough beads to accommodate my life total in rare situations, but I still like it quite a lot.
I agree that Crank Chief seems superfluous and could be replaced. I would recommend stuff like Attrition, Oppression, and even Infernal Darkness to slow the game down until you have more resources with which to go "off."
Azusa and Oona tend to be commander-centric so playing more spot removal like Hero's Downfall and Go for the Throat would help those matchups. Ravenous Chupacabra is good, but you lose the element of surprise with it in your graveyard.
Also, obligatory Thoughtseize recommendation. If you know your meta well enough and have decent predictive skills, you can get a lot of mileage out of it. Chainer is much better against countermagic than Erebos but sometimes you're going for a Torment of Hailfire win and need to push it through. Alternatively, you can go after the guy with spot removal to make sure Chainer hangs around.
The Persecutor resolves, and everyone is thoroughly impressed with my ability to jump hoops.
No one ever thinks of the engineers behind the Wild Ride.
Most of my games blur together for one reason or another but I do remember Chaos Warping into Platinum Emperion in my Daretti deck in response to lethal combat damage. At one life. Suck it, Madcap Experiment.
Do you find yourself actually wanting to make him a creature? I tend to just have him sitting as an indestructible lifegain blocker and card draw enabler more than in combat. Its so nice with Theors gods to play them and have to never have to cast them again in 9/10 games. Opening him up to an exile creature effect is just something I don't do very often.
It depends! I most frequently try to keep my devotion low in the early and mid game to avoid having him removed easily, as you point out. However, when I've got a couple of disruptivepermanents and a full grip I don't mind risking removal since I've already got lots of things to do without Erebos. I've also found that that's around the time I want to have an imposing blocker to deter attacks because that's around the time I become the table big bad.
Of course, there's nuance. If there's no white at the table I tend to be very aggressive with turning him into a creature since that's the best color by far for exiling/neutering creatures. If there's no permission, I tend to be aggressive as well since I can always easily recast him if removed with the oodles of mana I can generate should I need to. Conversely, against UWx control decks I try to walk a thin line between maintaining permanent-based disruption while keeping Erebos in play to try to bury them in card advantage. It's a tough matchup if you get into a 1v1 situation with them, but luckily there's always good ol' fashioned politicking. It's not that difficult to frame the blue player as the bad guy, even if you're the Prince of ******* Darkness.
What's my opinion on Food Chain? The same opinion I have about every inexpensive card that combos with a commander that is difficult to interact with that sees zero use in fair decks:
I used to play FoodChainGoblins in T1/T1.5 and the card is nuts when abused. Three mana is the top end of what I'd consider cheap for a combo card in this format, but that it can then effectively replace itself costwise by using its ability to ramp into something, like, say, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher or General Tazri from the command zone offsets that. It demands an immediate response or you lose and frequently does so in the early stages of the game while many decks still have their pants down. If there's no countermagic or enchantment removal (the second hardest permanent to remove after lands) it's game over; contrasted with something like Curiosity et al. and the two Niv-Mizzets they combo with, which is stopped by countermagic, enchantment removal, creature removal, or bounce, I think it's fair to say that there is a distinct power level difference between the two and therefore can be discussed on their own individual merits.
All that said, I don't think the card is necessarily problematic for the format. There's a Prossh deck floating around here that plays it, but since it's got such a niche use it pretty much only sees cEDH play, as others have mentioned. I would personally vote to ban it for philosophical reasons, but pragmatically speaking I don't think it's doing active harm to the format by remaining unbanned.
I'm somewhat unhappy with my targeted removal suite. Malicious Affliction is coming in over Sudden Death and Font of Agonies is under scrutiny to see if I should replace it with something easier to use. Sudden Deathing Laboratory Maniac feels really, really good but it's a bit too narrow to play. Affliction is basically Doom Blade+. I dislike the color restriction since a lot of nasty targets are black, but two mana is where I like my removal to be.
Underworld Dreams is coming out again (RIP). I'm really attached to it, and it puts out a respectable amount of damage for its cost, but not affecting the board state and not applying too much pressure to life totals weakens it. Glacial Chasm, as discussed, is coming in to replace it, as is a Swamp coming out for Blast Zone. Finally, I'm cutting Wayfarer's Bauble for Phyrexian Totem. Bauble is an excellent turn one play, but on every other turn it's awkward. +1 Swamp count is nice and it enables a turn 3 Erebos, but Totem turns into a reasonable threat after a board wipe. Lowering life totals to make your X spells lethal is a solid use of your mana. Totem is also a much, much better late game topdeck.
Torpor Orb might be okay. It looks like you run only three cards it would blank, but Enter the Battlefield Dragon Highlander is a thing. I ran it for a long time but added in a few too many ETB triggers which severely weakens the card. Dying to combat damage when you had to cast Gary with it out is miserable.
There's also Last Laugh. It ain't good, but it's fun. You'll end up killing yourself sometimes but that's the cost of doing business in MBC.
I agree that Necro isn't nearly as good here as it is in, say, Zur or black Sidisi or even Chainer, but the effect is too powerful to ignore. While not to the same degree, it's sort of like saying you shouldn't run Counterspell just because you're running Mana Drain. You want both.
Necropotence is an odd omission, but speaking as someone who plays Erebos I can almost understand why. I spend a lot of my life and mana activating Erebos to dig into my deck, and there are times when I topdeck Necro and it's dead because I'm so low on life. However, there are also times when I'm behind and it catapults me back into the game. Same with Ad Nauseam. They're two cards I'd rather have and not need than need and not have.
I agree that Toxic Deluge also merits inclusion. It can cost a lot of life and take out Erebos should he be active but the mana efficiency and ability to take out indestructibles and other problematic creatures is nice.
As for cuts, I think Skull of Ramos is the weakest ramp card in the deck, both Worst Fears and Mindslaver seem redundant (one effect to tutor up seems good but two is overkill), Ill-Gotten Gains seems counterintuitive in a deck heavily focused on discard, and Sever the Bloodline seems slooow.
Let me know how Pestilence works out for you.
Cutting Seer for Feeder is a mistake, in my opinion. Scry 1 is a much, much better ability than a measly +1/+1 counter. Being able to dig for answers or a win condition is great, especially with Overlord.
Actually, Winter Orb is one of my biggest fears when playing this deck. I don't see it often, but someone dropping it on me when I'm tapped out and don't have Coffers available is pretty much game over for me. It's difficult to break the parity with it like, say, Teferi or decks playing a ton of rocks can. The advantage with Web is that it's always on, no investment needed, but it's less of a lock card against fair decks than it is a way to combat blue-based control decks. Web, in theory, greatly reduces the ability for reactive control decks to interact with the table which, in theory, allows us to develop our resources and find a win condition somewhat unhindered. Being weak against decks playing cards at sorcery speed is less relevant since our deck is very, very good at beating those decks.
Reanimating Crypt Ghast or Nirkana Revenant for two mana just feels so, so good, though. I've won games because of surprising my opponents with the explosive mana production the cheap reanimation spells can generate. There's also the obvious value plays of nabbing a Mulldrifter, Eternal Witness, Reclamation Sage, etc. They're worth running in my opinion, I just think three effects is too many here.
I've tried many of the cards on your list (Yawgmoth's Will is absurd!) but since I only run five creatures many of the value reanimator engines/cards aren't very efficient here. The undercosted one shot effects ultimately do more work here. I got my reanimation fix out when I played Chainer, Dementia Master.
Attacking the Azusa player's card advantage is absolutely the correct play. You can't control their topdecks and they're going to find a way to ramp regardless, but well timed removal in response to Rishkar's Expertise or Shamanic Revelation or whatever will slow them down, which works in your favor. Alternatively - get this - you could play Ankh of Mishra to make vomiting out lands painful and thus the player becomes more susceptible to your drains.
You should play Mind Twist. It's a hoot. There is nothing more satisfying that Twisting the blue mage for their hand after they tap out. Mindslicer is fantastic, of course, but sometimes you need surgical precision.
What's the opinion on Mana Web? I slotted it in before to do some preliminary testing online but then lost all my prototype lists due to mechanical failure and it must've fallen through the cracks. From what little experience I had with it, it performed okay? It's not quite stax and affects "fair" decks that were just going to cast a single big dumb spell on their turn anyway less than it does reactive control decks. Largely preventing them from advancing their board and interacting with you is an excellent bind to place them in. Whatever they choose, the game is prolonged, and your inevitability grows. At least, that's the theory, anyway. At this point my deck is pretty mean so I might as well go all in.
Phyrexian Totem has already sealed a game for me by taking out a Jace, the Mind Sculptor after a board wipe cleared out the creatures protecting him so I'm glad it's back in the list. Sometimes pet cards are also useful.
With some testing and thinking, I believe Font of Agonies is a bit too slow. Typically, it removes one or two relevant creatures at 7 or 9 mana respectively, which is pretty inefficient, even if it's spent over a few turns. It rewards you for doing what you want to do with this deck, but unfortunately takes too long to come online to be effective. I also had the miserable experience of topdecking it when virtually any other removal spell would've saved me. Oh well. It's a cool card, though.
Necromancy or Dance of the Dead are going as well. Three reanimation cards in a deck with few targets, even if they're really good, is probably too much. Two is less than three, and the name is better, but I'm not sure if Dance is the better choice since Necromancy can also be used in an emergency to find a blocker or steal a dead ETB critter at instant speed.
- Font of Agonies
- a reanimation spell
+ Mana Web
+ open slot
Any thoughts on what to use for the open slot? I have three target spot removal spells and two edicts which is probably enough already, so I want to branch out a bit. I'm somewhat hesitant to try Bolas's Citadel. Even though I really like the card I just don't see it being too good here, and I feel pretty confident in my tutor/draw package. Honestly, I might add in another life total attrition/win condition card. I feel pretty light on them at the moment as there are the occasional games where I durdle around and take longer to kill my opponents than is necessary. Drain Life? Profane Command? Polluted Bonds? Army of the Damned? There are a lot of options, ranging from excellent to cute to terrible.
I'm not typically one to care about bling (I have aesthetic preferences for cards based on art, that's about it) but I recently obtained the following from my FLGS that combines one of my favorite cards with my favorite counting tool:
My only complaint is that it doesn't have enough beads to accommodate my life total in rare situations, but I still like it quite a lot.
Azusa and Oona tend to be commander-centric so playing more spot removal like Hero's Downfall and Go for the Throat would help those matchups. Ravenous Chupacabra is good, but you lose the element of surprise with it in your graveyard.
Also, obligatory Thoughtseize recommendation. If you know your meta well enough and have decent predictive skills, you can get a lot of mileage out of it. Chainer is much better against countermagic than Erebos but sometimes you're going for a Torment of Hailfire win and need to push it through. Alternatively, you can go after the guy with spot removal to make sure Chainer hangs around.
Most of my games blur together for one reason or another but I do remember Chaos Warping into Platinum Emperion in my Daretti deck in response to lethal combat damage. At one life. Suck it, Madcap Experiment.
Of course, there's nuance. If there's no white at the table I tend to be very aggressive with turning him into a creature since that's the best color by far for exiling/neutering creatures. If there's no permission, I tend to be aggressive as well since I can always easily recast him if removed with the oodles of mana I can generate should I need to. Conversely, against UWx control decks I try to walk a thin line between maintaining permanent-based disruption while keeping Erebos in play to try to bury them in card advantage. It's a tough matchup if you get into a 1v1 situation with them, but luckily there's always good ol' fashioned politicking. It's not that difficult to frame the blue player as the bad guy, even if you're the Prince of ******* Darkness.
I used to play Food Chain Goblins in T1/T1.5 and the card is nuts when abused. Three mana is the top end of what I'd consider cheap for a combo card in this format, but that it can then effectively replace itself costwise by using its ability to ramp into something, like, say, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher or General Tazri from the command zone offsets that. It demands an immediate response or you lose and frequently does so in the early stages of the game while many decks still have their pants down. If there's no countermagic or enchantment removal (the second hardest permanent to remove after lands) it's game over; contrasted with something like Curiosity et al. and the two Niv-Mizzets they combo with, which is stopped by countermagic, enchantment removal, creature removal, or bounce, I think it's fair to say that there is a distinct power level difference between the two and therefore can be discussed on their own individual merits.
All that said, I don't think the card is necessarily problematic for the format. There's a Prossh deck floating around here that plays it, but since it's got such a niche use it pretty much only sees cEDH play, as others have mentioned. I would personally vote to ban it for philosophical reasons, but pragmatically speaking I don't think it's doing active harm to the format by remaining unbanned.
I'm somewhat unhappy with my targeted removal suite. Malicious Affliction is coming in over Sudden Death and Font of Agonies is under scrutiny to see if I should replace it with something easier to use. Sudden Deathing Laboratory Maniac feels really, really good but it's a bit too narrow to play. Affliction is basically Doom Blade+. I dislike the color restriction since a lot of nasty targets are black, but two mana is where I like my removal to be.
Underworld Dreams is coming out again (RIP). I'm really attached to it, and it puts out a respectable amount of damage for its cost, but not affecting the board state and not applying too much pressure to life totals weakens it. Glacial Chasm, as discussed, is coming in to replace it, as is a Swamp coming out for Blast Zone. Finally, I'm cutting Wayfarer's Bauble for Phyrexian Totem. Bauble is an excellent turn one play, but on every other turn it's awkward. +1 Swamp count is nice and it enables a turn 3 Erebos, but Totem turns into a reasonable threat after a board wipe. Lowering life totals to make your X spells lethal is a solid use of your mana. Totem is also a much, much better late game topdeck.
- Underworld Dreams
- Sudden Death
- Wayfarer's Bauble
- Swamp
+ Glacial Chasm
+ Blast Zone
+ Malicious Affliction
+ Phyrexian Totem