I just had a few things I wanted to play with. I wanted to bolster my 2 drops a little more especially when I can get some 2 drops that are good early and late I think its important to not be too focused on only looking to the early game when it comes to cheap creatures. I am trying to lighten my 3 drops a little because Tymnia is kind of what I always want to be playing on 3 mana. I have to watch out for cards that are only good on curve so I am going to do what I can to lighten that a little.
DECK CHANGES:
Angel of Condemnation -> Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim - I do really like the Angel of Condemnation but I think it falls into my "only good on curve" sort of creatures. It could still be good later but its slow to do so given its abilities all require it to tap. Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim curves me in sooner which might possibly draw me more cards off of Tymnia which I think is great. I think its a good early and late game creature especially since I often have lifegain in here. I think its second activated ability will be very strong in this deck given the lifegain and being a 2/3 means that early on it wont trade and having deathtouch means it trades up. I really like all of these elements and the fact that it has a sac outlet on it as well means I could possibly protect vs theft with it as well. I think its a well rounded card for this deck and I can see it working early and late for me.
Doran, the Siege Tower -> Elvish Visionary - Doran is just so dang cool I was hesitant to cut him. He is a 3 drop though which means he is generally a 4 drop given my priority is given to Tymia. I think he is one of those creatures that I dont like as much when I dont curve him unfortunately. Elvish Visionary its really a small inclusion but it can curve in before Tymnia and possibly draw me a few cards plus even late, it cheaply cantrips. Its one of those style of creatures which is kind of a low impact add but because it could curve before Tymnia I think its worth including.
Skyshroud Claim -> Lightning Greaves - Skyshroud is just really kind of an iffy in that I feel its not ramping me soon enough but its also not ramping me all the much for where it lands. I think its better to just cut my losses as I just haven't felt that it hits my curve all that well. I am interested in the greaves from the standpoint that they could possibly give some protection to Tymna as well as giving her or other creatures haste could give me more draw. If I curve greaves / Tymnia it kind of turns greaves into draw in a sense as well.
I am not as sold on the Lightning Greaves. I considered the possibility of like Painful Truths or some other draw or protection effect as well. Its possible that something like say Benevolent Bodyguard could also protect Tymnia and draw some cards early but I was worried that that might be something too focused on curving in rather than something that might be useful later. I do run Avacyn, Angel of Hope and I really do like pairing her with Lightning Greaves so.... like I said, I am not totally sold on that one but I think it has some viability and I am willing to try it out.
Interestingly the time I have been playing my vampire deck I have picked up some pointers for this deck. I am trying to bring this one up to date with a few things I have been figuring out more recently. I will probably work on my curve a little when I get the chance but ultimately my goal is to focus on creatures that are good early and late so I want cheap drops that don't fall off later in the game where possible. I am also somewhat trying to avoid 3 drops because thats the turn I really want to play Tymnia so I have more focus on the 2 and 4 mana slots and the 3 drops that I kept I want to be good off curve as well.
DECK CHANGES:
Managorger Hydra -> Forgotten Ancient - given that I am kind of trying to avoid 3 drops and in the case of the hydra, I would probably be playing it as a 4 drop I think that moving to Forgotten Ancient gives me a threat that I can really spread out my power which seems great. I could move the power off of the ancient and out pace blockers by making my commander and early drops big enough to swing past. I like that it potentially draws a lot of hate to the ancient which might keep Tymnia alive in that there are more than one threat to deal with.
Thalia, Heretic Cathar -> Bastion Protector I have been having an issue with Thalia in that she seems too dependant to get in the early game. She is a three drop though so again I am playing her off curve and she gets worse as time goes on. Bastion Protector make a great 4 drop behind Tymnia and given that I have partner commanders its buff can get even stronger later and the fact that it gives me some wrath protection feels great.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite -> Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist to some degree, I just want to lower my curve some. Elesh always felt a little out of place in this deck but I used it sort of as token / utility creature defense. I like that Mirri gives me a lot of evasion as well as also giving me some defense vs swarms. She has a lower toughness which means she could be tutored by Recruiter of the Guard as well. I have a small concern that her effects dont go active until she attacks for the most part. I want to try her out though as I like the concept of what she could do for me though.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed -> Archangel of Thune I am adding more +/+ counter stuff which is actually making Mikaeus worse. I really wanted to make room for Archangel which again makes Mikaeus worse. I am slowly bumping up some of the lifegain matters cards in my deck in part because I have so many lifegain effects just built into my two commanders.
Chord of Calling -> Painful Truths I feel like I am not really a toolbox deck so I wanted to cut a creature tutor. It occurred to me that Chord felt like the most expensive of the tutors especially from the standpoint of staring from the early game it just feels like it takes the longest to go active. I also dont have that many tricks to flash in as it feels like Selfless Spirit is about the only one. I think its important to keep some draw that is not tied to Tymnia and when everyone sandbags on her it makes life harder so I guess here is a bit more draw.
Beast Within -> Ulvenwald Tracker I have been adding so much noncreature hate to the deck that it feels like some of this removal for anything has been shifted more to like.... answers for creatures. I had been wondering if I could work tracker in here and I like a lot of what it can do. I kind of wish I maybe had a little more for haste outlets for it but I think it might also detract some hate away from Tymnia which is also good.
I had a few other things that I put somewhat high on my considerations as well which I did not make a move on right now but I was considering them.
Dark Confidant - it has been doing some good work for me in my vampire deck. My curve here is a lot worse though but I also have a lot of lifegain in the deck. He also curves well into Tymnia which seems kind of nice. There is still the concern of all of the 6-8 drops that I dont really want to pay that much life to draw butttt I do have recovery tools in the deck to sort of deal with that. Stoneforge Mystic - I recently went from 1 to 2 equipment. Its a 2 drop creature as well but if I stoneforge for an equipment I am going to have to push off playing that equipment as it doesnt really curve all that well with Tymnia.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I had a nice game last week. I managed to get and stick an Aura Shards for numerous turns where a UG player just could not find the right answer. I also managed to get a Gaddoc Teeg and hide him behind Lightning Greaves which was hilarious. The addition of the removal based creatures was mostly great for me as well as I often wanted them.
DECK CHANGE:
Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist -> Angel of Condemnation I ran into a situation where my opponents had bigger creatures than Mirri and it just wasn't worth casting her as this like one time evasion effect. I really liked the removal based creatures I added last time and I decided to try to circle back to a little bit of removal. I do like a lot of what Angel of Condemnation can bring to the table as far as disruption and evasion goes.
I want to get more testing in because of how many changes I have gone through of late. Ulvenwald Tracker was a little funky just given that I have more smaller sized creatures now than I had previously. Karlov of the Ghost Council was fairly good but it was a little funky given I felt like I needed to have a bunch of creatures connecting when I drew him a little later but I did manage to get his counters up enough to remove a target. Bastion Protector was kind of cool given the two commanders, I did draw it a bit later but I drew it alongside Odric, Lunarch Marshal with a Lightning Greaves in play so it turned into like indestructible, mennace, haste, trample given what I had at the time. I almost did tons of work with Archangel of Thune but I got spot removed as I moved to put on Lightning Greaves on turn 6 (right behind Ikra lol).
So, I guess right now I want to try out Angel of Condemnation again because it looks like it could give me an evasive beater and it could act as some disruption from wraths or even spot removal and it could also disrupt my opponents things. I didn't ever actually draw it in this deck so while I did previously cut it I am still interested in how it might work for me.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I dont play the list too frequently as the strategy does kind of resemble my vampire list as well and I don't want to burn people out on that kind of strategy. Given the vamps has been the newer list I have been giving it a little more priority but I do really like this list too. I have been seeing Karlov of the Ghost Council a bit of late and really liking how he has been fitting into the deck. I ended up putting 12 counters on him in one attack recently which was sweet. I want to see a bit more of Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim as I haven't seen her yet but I have high hopes for her too. Its a bit interesting but I have noticed that overall my big fat fatties have gone down a bit and my cheaper utility has been going up. I need to test more to see how that pans out and there are some cards like say Ezuri's Predation that are suffering a bit for it. I am going to be a little slow right now in making changes because I think I need to do more testing before I jump to conclusions but its possible that some effects that care more about numbers might be more relevant moving forward given some of these adjustments. Effects that scale to numbers might also become more appealing with this shift but I need to get more testing in.
DECK CHANGE:
Ulvenwald Tracker -> Stoneforge Mystic so, the tracker has been less good because as I was saying I bumped up my cheap creatures who scale decently of late and I noticed a lack of big creatures to use to fight with. I like the mystic because its still a cheap creature I can curve into Tymnia and since I moved to two equipment with Lightning Greaves I thought I could possibly bring it in.
Sword of Feast and Famine -> Umezawa's Jitte I wanted to pick up a little more utility in my equipment as I moved to stoneforge mystic. I like the jitte from the standpoint that it can play a lot of creature control for clearing small utility and tokens and just give me a lot of combat prowess. I do still kind of like feast and famine but at the same time as I have moved to more faster creatures I think I am ok as I am with more utility control over trying to drop fatties. Jitte also has some great interaction with some of the lifegain matters effects (Karlov of the Ghost Council, Archangel of Thune, Crested Sunmare) in the deck so I think its triggers are really versatile.
This is kind of upcoming but I think Ghalta, Primal Hunger looks quite interesting for this deck as well. It comes back a little to questioning how many fatties I do run and how I can best take advantage of him but I think he is totally in the running as a strong possible that I will enjoy
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I had two great games this week. I ended up winning one and losing one but I was unaware that one of the decks was a combo deck that ended up winning very suddenly which I had not expected. I had never played against the player before and he was playing a Teysa deck which can be combo but it can also be a fair token control deck too. I don't like to just run people out of the game because I don't know them so I tend to prefer to assume they play non combo decks over combo until they prove me otherwise.
T1: land, Mana Crypt (I wont bother mentioning every time but Mana Crypt hits me almost every turn), Chrome Mox, Tymna the Weaver. Rakdos plays a Sol Ring + Cryptolith Fragment. His first land entered tapped so this is his turn two. T2: land, Tymna attacks Rakdos because he is having a crazy start. I play Crested Sunmare after drawing a card. Rakdos plays his commander + Lightning Greaves and attacks me. Teysa plays Bitterblossom. T3: land, Teysa agrees to not block my commander in exchange I don't also swing a horse at him. I swing the two horses at the Rakdos player. I end up drawing a bunch of extra lands so I play Azusa, Lost but Seeking into Forgotten Ancient. I get another horse at end step. Rakdos swings at me again but doesn't seem to have much for creatures in hand so he plays Manabarbs. Teysa plays Ashnod's Altar. T4: I move my counters from Forgotten Ancient onto Tymna so I can have a bigger lifelinker. My life is looking a little worse for wear so I play Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper and swing my creatures back primarily at Rakdos. I play Greater Good to end my turn and make another horse. Rakdos swings at me and brings my commander damage from him up to 18 he drew and played Conduit of Ruin but it looks a little slow given I can probably run him down the next turn given the 27 damage I have already done to him not to mention the greater good dig for answers I can probably do next turn. Teysa plays his commander and utilizing the tokens he has from Bitterblossom and Ashnod's Altar manages to tutor for Darkest Hour which then gives him infinite colorless mana. He also happens to have Skullclamp so he draws essentially his deck off of his infinite tokens and infinite mana and then plays Blasting Station to infinte damage the two of us. I dig in my top 20-30 cards to see if I have a BW answer for two but I dont really run much of that here.
So.... that one ended on turn 5 (turn 4 me). It kind of sucked as I had a great start but I guess this guy is combo and found all the pieces super quick. If I had known he was playing a combo deck I probably would have given more consideration to keeping the opening hand Anguished Unmaking or finding an answer to the Ashnod's. The game looked really good all in all and I suspect given the Greater Good that I probably could have found my way to an answer or way to not die to Rakdos attacking me the next turn and from there it looked like it was going to be a great game for me.
T1: land T2: land, Bloom Tender T3: land, Tymna the Weaver, Karlov of the Ghost Council (off of the bloom tender). Child plays a Propaganda. Locus God plays a Mana Vault. (I kind of hear Locus God contemplating a wheel) T4: land, Odric, Lunarch Marshal odric shares out lifelink so I swing with Karlov and Tymna at locus god since I dont want to pay to attack yet. I keep mana up for possibly needing Heroic Intervention given my option was to swing for counters on Karlov or having protection. Child plays Horn of Greed. The Locust God plays his a Magus of the Wheel. T5: land, I feel like next turn Locust God plans to play his commander and wheel for tokens so I look at the Avacyn, Angel of Hope I just drew and felt it was better to tap out play her than it was to risk the wheel. I swing my creatures and pump Karlov up to a 12/12. Child plays Teferi's Puzzle Box (really questionably given our locus god opponent). Locus God gets his commander into play and keeps the wheel up which I find a little curious but its possible with the Puzzle Box in play he wants to keep it for when he feels he has a bad hand rather than try to disrupt now. He does play a land after his commander and draws a card / makes a token. T6: I untap and during my upkeep I Fracturing Gust to blow away the Teferi's Puzzle Box given it looks like it will just give the game to Locus God not to mention I wanted to kill the Propaganda for a while and just had not had the reason to do it yet. I swing a few creatures at both opponents. Locus God tries to wheel to make blockers but he forgot about Karlov so I remove counters and zap his commander in response. He feels utterly crushed and concedes on the spot. Child plays an Aetherflux Reservoir but is looking at like 30 life to my 60-80. T7: I swing a bunch of creatures at the Child player and sit back on my Teferi's Protection knowing that Karlov got a lot bigger and his next turn is his last. Child cant come up with a defense and he dies on my turn 8.
So, a few good games for some highlights. I got some fast mana each game upfront which does help and I didn't feel like I got disrupted all that much which might have come back to it being three player games instead of the usual 4-6 that I usually have to deal with. So, I guess some feedback from my games... I keep questioning if I should be running more cheap instant speed interaction to disrupt combo a bit more. I don't want to go too rogue but I think I would like just a little more disruption for the combo players. I don't play against that stuff enough that I think it needs to be my priority and I didn't feel like I didn't get to play the game when I did face combo so its not too bad but I wanted just a little more.
DECK CHANGES:
Teferi's Protection -> Aura of Silence I have always had issues with these responsive anti wrath cards which is that they can be incredibly narrow in what they do not to mention there is a big issue in keeping the mana up for them all of the time. I do really love Teferi's Protection and I am ramping fairly well but I constantly had issues keeping the mana up to cast it. I think its a great card but until I get to the mid to late game I just couldn't really ever have it ready because I generally am trying to continue to push ahead with my mana. Aura of Silence is a little tricky but with seeing a little more combo style of cards I think its worth giving up three mana and a card to tax and slow down the combo players. Its also a very good card later on and the emergency spot removal is very key. My issues with the card are still that it costs 3 mana and that I wont ever prioritize it over Tymnia if I suspect someone is playing a heavy noncreature based deck its slow down effect is very strong.
Anguished Unmaking -> Swords to Plowshares I have been pushing up my noncreature removal so much that what I really wanted from my spot removal was more for it to be cheaper to keep up. I debated between moving this to something like Nature's Claim but I felt that my creature removal was a little more important for this slot considering how much noncreature hate I have in here. In a lot of cases there have been instances where a creature based spot removal would also bail me out of a lot of combos. Its not always true but I will give it a shot and see how things go for now.
Stoneforge Mystic -> Knight of the Reliquary I realized that I had an issue with Stoneforge Mystic and that was that I primarily did not want to cast most of my equipment on turns 3 or 4. In a sense the point of Stoneforge Mystic is to toolbox and act as card advantage but my issue was that for the most part I prefer just drawing a card from something like Elvish Visionary than to have a specific equipment to hand just because I would prefer to play lands and creatures sooner. Knight of the Reliquary spent some time in and out of my list but I think I am fine with it returning. The amount of power for the mana that it represents can be quite solid and I am adding a few more utility lands to the deck right now that might be worth fetching up.
Painful Truths -> Genesis Wave I did some considering of cards like Chord of Calling which I had previously cut and in the end I think that Genesis Wave starts to outshine several of these one shot draw tutor effects once you get to about the 8 mana range. My deck seems to be doing fine in the early game so I think that the value of just pushing more lands and creatures to play probably outshines drawing a few cards or tutoring something specifically. Painful Truths is a little wonky in that I really don't want to cast it early on anyways given how action jammed I tend to be in the 3-5 mana timeframe.
Heroic Intervention -> Aetherflux Reservoir I am trying to cut back on my responsive cards a little and move to a more proactive gameplan. I just had a lot of issues keeping up the mana for some of these responsive anti wraths in this deck given how much I am trying to be proactive. I honestly do have some reservations about adding Aetherflux Reservoir to this deck but I encountered it twice under my opponents control this last week so it feels a little silly to continue to not run it when I encounter it plenty.
Sunpetal Grove -> Gaea's Cradle I am not entirely sold one way or another on if cradle will or will not work here. I own a copy so I figure I should give it a shot.
Isolated Chapel -> Tectonic Edge I wanted to bump my nonbasic land hate a little. I am still not too worried about it but someone did drop a Glacial Chasm and I was VERY lucky to have had my Strip Mine in hand. Adding Knight of the Reliquary also helps on this front a little but I also think a second option is probably a good move.
Woodland Cemetery -> Swamp I wanted to bump my basic land count just a little for Traverse the Outlands. I don't think it needs to be drastic so I am just bumping it by one for now.
So, I do think these changes will help. Some of these changes are me slowly adapting to my new meta as I see a little more combo and spot removal and a little less on the wraths front. The deck has been moving very quickly and I have liked most of what its been doing so its just a matter of fine tuning it for my own needs as well as shifts in who I am playing against. I did end up keeping Golgari Charm of my anti wrath instants but that is also in part because of how versatile that card really can be. If I could get another Selfless Spirit at the same mana / same ability I would totally put it in my list in an instant. The instant speed spells have proven to be harder to include and use though so for now I think I am right in scaling them back. I have always had an issue with those kind of spells in decks that are very actively trying to get things done as it doesn't leave me much mana to try to use them with.
So, I havent seen too many of my recent adds but I did see Genesis Wave and Cradle a few times and they seem to be working out for me. In some of my recent games I decided to make a few more changes. I have really been enjoying some of the stat efficient control element creatures of late.
DECK CHANGE:
Dire Fleet Ravager -> Angelic Field Marshal I managed to finally see the ravager and I guess I just was not impressed. He has the issue that the later you get him the worse he gets because either you are doing good already and he accounts for a small bit of life loss or you are not doing well and he hits harder but.... as a body he is not going to make your game suddenly go back on track. Unlike Gary / Kokusho he seems to get worse as the game goes on rather than better as they tend to pick up steam as you get more mana as you can probably abuse them. Overall I just was not impressed when he showed up. Angelic Field Marshal seems like decent stats and mass vigilance seems fine. Its one of those creatures I have kind of gone back and forth on a number of times but for now, I am going to put it in the list and see what it does. Its not that different from Abyssal Persecutor and the mass vigilance instead of the small stat difference / trample seems probably fine.
Ezuri's Predation -> Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite I have had continuous issues with Ezuri's Predation in that it seems like its very dependent on what your opponents are playing as to if it is going to work very well. There is a night and day between this card being crazy busted good and underwhelming and overcosted and it comes down to what your opponents are playing. I ended up cutting Elesh Norn a while back for similar concerns but I like that she is a continuous effect and I ended up adding a lot of cheaper and faster creatures since then that seem like an anthem buff would be strong with. I guess my own swarm tactics feel like they have come up since then and I have not been seeing as many clone / theft effects in my newer meta that would make me feel like she would be as punishing against me. I was considering putting in Noxious Gearhulk in this place but honestly I there are pros and cons to each of these three cards and I think at face value Elesh Norn lets me win most combats on top of removing a lot of chump blockers which is quite relevant on top of a damage output buff.
Garruk, Primal Hunter -> Lurking Predators as I have moved some of the fatty creatures to cheaper creatures and utility effects I have noticed that it felt a little odd for Garruk. I did kind of assess my other two cards similar to Garruk and I think I am still fine with the other two its just that Garruk is a little lacking for me. I cut lurking a while back but that was when Garruk felt like he was doing more and given the move to more smaller and mid sized minions I felt like moving back to lurking might be worthwhile. I like running cards in this deck that require opponents to remove them so I want to give lurking another shot.
Burgeoning -> Deathrite Shaman most of the time I have gotten Burgeoning it has been awkward given max hand sizes and that I cant push the lands into play now. It tends to fit better with a deck that is burst drawing a bunch of cards and pushing no max hand size with it. I just have not been able to get the same results with it as I have with Exploration so I think its time to move on. Deathrite Shaman seems a little interesting from the standpoint of all of the different utility it can offer me. Its potentially strong early and later on it can still trigger some of my lifegain matters effects, deprive graveyards, and push through for some direct damage to my opponents. Its nice that it could also ramp me into Tymna and possibly attack for cards early on.
Bojuka Bog -> Hall of the Bandit Lord so, I am hesitant to have too many enters tapped lands and I also was having some trouble with the decision of lowering my basic count or not to add another utility land. I think there is a lot of room for Hall of the Bandit Lord to be really strong in here as I have several creatures that getting a head start on attacking or being able to tap activate the turn they hit play could be huge. I also don't really mind losing a little life here and there so it seems like a strong option to push to go a little faster. I think the Bog is fine and its possible I bring it back in later I just think I have sort of a lot of grave hate right now with Scavenging Ooze, Deathrite Shaman, and Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet all in here too. There are obviously a few key creatures who are going to be better with haste than others but I think the opportunity cost is not bad and its a little more proactive than bog which I think is good. Cards like Sun Titan / Kalonian Hydra / Archangel of Thune / Angel of Condemnation / Knight of the Reliquary / Tymna the Weaver are some of the ones that really come to mind for me as ones I would love haste for but I think it does go beyond that too. I just felt like making the change gave me a little more proactive feel and it lets me potentially be a little faster.
Overall, I have been really enjoying the increase in my 2 drops. I have been trying a bit more for early game creatures who scale well into the late game and I think I have been having some better success due to that. Karlov of the Ghost Council has been an absolute beast combined with Ikra Shidiqi. The early game potential of this deck has been really solid for me and its ability to keep moving resources has been great too. I had some games last week where my opponents had sweepers / spot removal and they had a really hard time keeping up with me as well as how many targets I continuously had and the value I was pushing. One of my new pushes is to try to have a lot of different targets beyond just trying to answer Tymna ever time she shows her head and that has been feeling a lot better for me.
I am just watching some of these spoilers and I like some of the cards I am seeing already for this list.
World Shaper - Its a 4 drop that can potentially give me some solid ramp on curve even just off of my own fetchlands. Being that its a 3/3 its big enough that it can probably bully utility / ETB creatures still and when I do walk into a wrath it probably gives me a little bit of ramp. Later in the game it possibly recovers some utility lands or pushes a big portion of land to play. It even seems really nice off of Greater Good who you could sacrifice it to and ditch a bunch of lands.
Tendershoot Dryad - This is like.... some super odd cross of Verdant Force with Deranged Hermit but taking like all of the good parts of both and none of the bad elements of them. By the next turn you should have 4 tokens from this card so assuming you cast it off of 5 mana plus the four tokens it makes you will have already hit the ascend. So.... I guess its a MUST answer creature that if it is not answered by the turn after it is played it has become 14/14 worth of stats for 5 mana that keeps growing. SIGN ME UP!
I also gave some consideration to Ghalta, Primal Hunger and Vona's Hunger but for various reasons I have decided they don't fit here. I will try to outline my reasons on them more in a set review.
I have also been mulling over Crop Rotation lately. It's also possible that something like Sylvan Scrying might be solid. I was kind of thinking about Crop Rotation from the standpoint that upfront Hall of the Bandit Lord could be really strong but it would really have to be put in play in the first two turns which Sylvan Scrying is not as friendly for doing. If I could cast Tymna with haste though it would make for a very strong start to the same degree that ramping into her might have. Later in the game a nonbasic land tutor could get me Gaea's Cradle so in a sense it would still be very strong. I was mulling over taking Deathrite Shaman out for Crop Rotation potentially... but I think it would possibly also make me want to go back and bring Bojuka Bog back in as well. I am going to keep mulling that over but I think its also possible to make a cut somewhere else. I just think that Crop Rotation does feel like it could be strong here.
I am looking forward to seeing what else we see from this set. So far the cards have been kind of crazy as I did not think that there would even be two cards I would consider for this deck and already I am seeing some great potential for this deck.
It looks like the full Rivals of Ixilan is up. I guess with knowing everything I will launch my changes.
Deck Changes:
Azusa, Lost but Seeking -> Wayward Swordtooth so, I struggled with the fact that I will essentially always prioritize Tymna over Azusa. I also don't run Crucible of Worlds or any of those type of effects to put Azusa to work the way she wants to be used. I like that the new dino gives me a decent sized body that I can use for combat and really one extra land drop / turn is all I should really need to get my lands to hand even with some burst draw. I think the raptor will fit a bit better as I had been eyeing Azusa for a while now as a potential cut since she really cant attack in for me so I like the concept of this change.
Sunscorch Regent -> Tendershoot Dryad the dragon mostly just gets huge fast. On the flip side, it also requires spot removal / a wrath to take out the Dryad but I feel like the expected growth / turn is much bigger with the Dryad and where the dragon feels like its only a problem if it comes after you, I like that the dryad kind of feels like a problem for everyone. I am trying to make a LOT more creatures be problems if they live.
Bloodgift Demon -> Twilight Prophet this feels like about the same card but for one less mana. The vampire also has a little bit of siphoning to my opponents and a little bit of a lifegain enabler pickup as well.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet -> World Shaper being I am not really toolboxing I have not liked Kalitas as much more recently. Its nice in that it potentially gives me some setup post wrath but I have just found him very niche / reactive to some decks for a deck with not that many tutors. I think moving to World Shaper gives me a more consistent proactive card. I think both of them are vulnerable to the same type of removal its just that instead of potentially having a few tokens post wrath I might have a bunch more lands and I think that is a fine trade off.
Elvish Visionary -> Crop Rotation so, I have not drawn visionary yet in this list. I don't think its bad and I think it could come back in later. Its more that I think that Crop Rotation has a spot for this list and I need to make room somewhere. With the recent add of Hall of the Bandit Lord and Gaea's Cradle I think I have a little more room for this card to be strong for me. If I get rotation in the early game, getting Hall of the Bandit Lord in play might in some ways simulate the effect of an early 2 drop.
Overall, the mana costs of things stay about the same. I am trying to bring up the number of "must answer" cards in this deck to ideally force people to use answers on things other than Tymna as well as wrath me with less of my own cards in play. These changes should increase my ability to swarm as well as my ramp capability.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
So, I have been working on the OP and trying to turn this thread into a [Primer]. I still have a bit to finish and I have to put it through the committee but its coming along quite well. I have been playing this deck for over a year now and its still one of my favorite decks to pilot so I thought I should really shine it up and try to give it a bit more attention with a shiny tag. I am waiting for the new cards right now as well as to find a new meta to play in as the old LGS closed down right before Christmas but I have some expectation that something new will open or set up in its place.
DECK CHANGE:
Sakura-Tribe Elder -> Elvish Visionary I was working on the OP and I realized that as I have been including more early game creatures in my list Sakura-Tribe Elder has been feeling more awkward to me. If it is something that I try to curve play I essentially do not want to sacrifice it as I would be dropping card draw for ramp that does not get me into my proactive Tymna the Weaver commander play. Later in the game if I topdeck Sakura-Tribe Elder it is also not super great and while its not bad I would rather topdeck Elvish Visionary later in the game and it seems I would also rather curve play it than the Elder. So... I guess in retrospect I am appreciating the Visionary over the Elder.
I have had the Visionary in the list for a little bit (just cut it as the full set if Rivals of Ixilan was fully revealed) but I still have not seen it yet. It is possible that I might also have to consider Dusk Legion Zealot but I want to wait and see how Elvish Visionary does for me first. I sort of love writing primers because in writing about every card sometimes you catch that some cards you assumed were working might not be as well as you thought.
The deck seems very well rounded at this point, card quality is really good.
One thought I had though was to maybe replace Lurking Predators with Journey to Eternity. Since you run a lot of relatively cheap creatures, you're not cheating al that much on mana cost. And with 66% of your deck not being a creature, I think this effect misses 2 out of 3 times. Journey on the other hand, makes your deck much more resilient against boardwipes. You can protect a strong creature on the board and thereafter you have a repeating source of card advantage, allowing you to keep Zombifying creatures. It's also cheaper manawise. I think it would add more to the deck's resilience than Lurking Predators does.
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The secret to enjoyable Commander games is not winning first, but losing last.
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
The deck seems very well rounded at this point, card quality is really good.
One thought I had though was to maybe replace Lurking Predators with Journey to Eternity. Since you run a lot of relatively cheap creatures, you're not cheating al that much on mana cost. And with 66% of your deck not being a creature, I think this effect misses 2 out of 3 times. Journey on the other hand, makes your deck much more resilient against boardwipes. You can protect a strong creature on the board and thereafter you have a repeating source of card advantage, allowing you to keep Zombifying creatures. It's also cheaper manawise. I think it would add more to the deck's resilience than Lurking Predators does.
Sorry for the delay in response, I was working out some changes in my head and some of them are still a little fuzzy so I was trying to sort them out before I posted what I was changing.
Lurking Predators - I run this card because its fast acting, it also serves as both tempo as well as card draw in that it sort of bypasses the need to draw cards and it just puts them right into play. If it hits play the next player could use spot removal on it but even in that first flip I could flip a creature into play. In general I assume that my opponents will cast something like 1-1.5 cards per turn (which is just sort of a figure I made up on the spot given my own personal observances) which mean that in a turn rotation I should see 3-4.5 cards in a turn rotation which means it should give me a free creature per turn as both a draw plus play effect. The important part of this card is that I only have to pay for the card upfront and it continues to generate value and it gets to its value quickly.
Journey to Eternity - I run two sac outlets and a single creature that can self sacrifice in this deck. I think this card is really cool but I also think that for it to be decent you really need the ability to kill the creature you put it on which I don't feel that I have access to. I think that paying 6 mana with Atzal, Cave of Eternity to rez a creature from grave to play is actually quite strong I just don't see how I can reliably get to the back side of the card which is why I am thinking I will probably pass on it.
Circling back to why I run lurking, its because its like card draw that also tempo plays the creatures for me. Its fast to generate value and it continues to generate value until it dies. Its a great play post wrath or even to just push lots of potential pressure onto opponents.
With working on the OP I wanted to make a few more adjustments. Writing about the functions of cards really gets me second guessing some of the ones that might not fit and so I love writing primers due to that.
DECK CHANGE:
Abyssal Persecutor -> Woodland Bellower I have been decreasing a lot of the vanilla beaters who dont scale. I like Abyssal a lot but if I don't drop it on curve I feel like it drops off kind of quick. Woodland Bellower seems a little more appealing to me now given that I have Knight of the Reliquary and Wayward Swordtooth fatties which can both result in a huge gain of stats. My targets in my 3 or less non legendary green creatures mostly gives me access to ramp, utility lands, grave hate, or potentially draw one. I am also adding Eternal Witness into the deck because I do think its valid mid to late game to have the tutor option to recover a card from grave. I have been reluctant to add it up until now because I really am not trying to be a tutor / toolbox deck but given I am also adding the Bellower to the list and there have been a number of times I wished I could recover a wrath or something I think I will bring it in too.
Traverse the Outlands -> Hour of Promise I have wanted to make Traverse work in this deck but I just don't have enough basics. I have also been moving to less fatty creatures and more utility creatures but I think the real issue is the basic land count. I cast this card halfway into a game one of the last times I played the deck and I only had like a single basic left in the deck. Given some of the sick utility lands I run in here I think Hour of Promise brings just as much power (if not more) but it bypasses the issue I was having with basic lands. Hall of the Bandit Lord, Gaea's Cradle, Strip Mine, Bojuka Bog, Yavimaya Hollow all seem like great options for this card.
Homeward Path -> Scavenger Grounds I still think Homeward is a good card but I have added a lot of board control creatures to the deck to the point that I feel I can probably overcome a light amount of theft. I also don't see much theft so it seems odd to devote a card to counter something that honestly feels like its been a long time since I had an issue with it. Scavenger Grounds gives me more graveyard hate without taking up much space. I just think its more likely that I want to have access to hate on graveyards than counter theft right now in what I do see played.
Twilight Mire -> Bojuka Bog I wanted to make room for Bojuka Bog again but I also didn't want to cut into my basic lands. I realized that of all of the lands of the lorwyn lands cycle I wanted to keep Fetid Heath because it fixes the best into Tymna on curve. I am not really sure why but I had at some point cut or excluded Wooded Bastion from my list. My list IRL had Wooded Bastion in place of Homeward Path but I decided I could cut both for some utility. I do have a small bit of concern bringing up my ETB tapped land count in the list but with all of these nonbasic land tutors I think I just need to make space for now and see if it becomes a problem.
Aura of Silence -> Eternal Witness I really do like Aura of Silence but I have also brought up my noncreature hate quite a bit as well. Aura is best played on curve and Tymna is going to be my objective on curve so then I am looking to play it off curve. Its a solid card by all means but with the number of noncreature hate effects I am running I think for now I am going to go away from Aura at this time. Eternal Witness is a creature I don't like in my opener but I like having access to in the mid to late game especially given a few tutors that can get it. I have had a few games where I have regretted not having it in my list and while I am still not trying to be an ETB creature deck I think what it offers for the creature tutors is worth having access to.
This is quite a few changes all at once and I hope they work out for me. Some of this is me not liking how a few things have worked or might work as I fumble with their mechanics in my head. As for the new inclusions.... its hard to say. I think Woodland Bellower is a cool card but its another 6 drop which moves my curve up a little. I guess time will tell.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I am just trying to get my set reviews done. I have several changes that I still need to test in this deck that I have not had sufficient time to be able to playtest due to my LGS closing down a few months back. I think there are a few interesting cards and some of them I could see possibly circling back to or considering now but ultimately none of it stood out as much for me for this deck.
Dominaria Set Review
Dauntless Bodyguard - Given that early creatures can be additional draw and if drawn later it could help protect key creatures or Tymna its an interesting thought. One of the biggest concerns I have with cheap and early creatures is how much they fall off when played off curve and its nice that this one could still offer protection later.
Shalai, Voice of Plenty - it could provide protection from spot removal for Tymna but the issue I have is kind of that by the time I could play her even on curve I would probably have to get past spot removal already so if I play this angel and eat spot removal in response.... it kind of defeats the point of having played her at all. So.... she doesn't really protect me on curve and given my concerns tend to be protect Tymna early and then play around wraths later I feel like she kind of misses a lot of what I would be after.
Sylvan Awakening - it.... could be an amusing play but I don't really see it being all that good. Its one shot and it requires a bunch of lands for it to be decent.
Territorial Allosaurus - ultimately I think its just kind of an inferior Polukranos, World Eater. It has its own pros but being able to curve the same stats and be able to later use the fighting seems better to me.
Untamed Kavu - its a cheap drop that could curve me into drawing cards with my commander and if kicked it is still a decent beater later. Ultimately I still have some concerns about strict beaters with the exception of the ones that are super unfair though.
Demonlord Belzenlok - He is a beater with a little bit of draw on him. I don't think more 6+ drops are really my biggest concern though which is why I will probably pass.
Josu Vess, Lich Knight - What I like here is that as a 4 drop it has evasion and decent stats. The idea of a late game bomb for post wrath also seems nice. I think its something I could see working but its also not so obvious that I think its something I am super eager to run.
Arvad the Cursed - It reminds me a little of Bastion Protector but it costs more mana. I am not really a legendary heavy deck so the bonus outside of my commanders is a little less ideal. I am going to pass.
Aryel, Knight of Windgrace - its got decent stats but its abilities just seem.... slow. Vanilla 4/4 for 4s seem underwhelming.
Shanna, Sisay's Legacy - it curves with my commander's plan and it can get big later. It lacks evasion though and it has no purpose other than beating in. I have found myself preferring having some utility over just size stats.
Slimefoot, the Stowaway - its a three drop which tends to be not my ideal creature CMC. I think its ability to syphon life and make tokens are fine but the cost per token is too high. If it had a different cmc it might change things for me but ultimately its not really what I want or need here.
Blackblade Reforged - I am not really a voltron deck and I often smash up artifacts and enchantments en mass. It doesn't really fit here.
Traxos, Scourge of Kroog - I actually think this would be really nice assuming I had enough historic effects in the deck. Unfortunately though..... I think I don't have enough historic effects to run this.
Weatherlight - I don't have enough historic effects in the deck for it to pick up. Its crew of three is also a little awkward as it means I can't do it nicely with just Tymna.
Ultimately I don't know that anything from this set is actually enough that I want it in this deck. I can see merit in a few considerations but nothing jumps out enough that I feel I want to make room for it right now.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I got primer status for this deck. There is still some feedback from the committee I need to circle back and adjust to the OP when I get a chance but I wanted to get a Battlebond review out first.
Abzan Battlebond Set Review:
Regna, the Redeemer - So, she can probably be a 4/4 who makes 2 1/1s every turn but it seems a little similar to Emeria Angel or Rampaging Baloth except for the fact that we can't really trigger her ability on opponents turns with this list (at least in a reasonable way) and you can't trigger it more than once per our turns. I find her to be too reliant on other board states than the token makers I have now as well as being less explosive and having less impressive turns than the things I already run.
Arena Rector - I think this is a solid card for the right deck but I think the right deck is one with sac outlets and planeswalkers which is not this deck. I think even just having like one or two 6+ mana planeswalker is enough to justify this card assuming your deck also runs sacrifice tactics but you probably also want 2+ planeswalkers so you can have a backup. As of writing this review I have no planeswalkers in my list.
Brightling - its too white intensive, its a three drop which competes with Tymna, and mostly its abilities are just not anything that I would actually want for this list. I think its cool to see the Morphling cycles still continuing in this day and age because I think they are super cool but the white version might be a little less impressive on what its abilities do for this format. I like that they made it a 3/3 for 3 though so I guess that is cool.
Gorm the Great - Being a 4 drop is ok and I like that he gives me some evasion for my other creatures. I guess the big killer for me is that he is going to get blocked and he has poor power. I think this is a really cool design and for building him as a commander he seems about right but as a singleton I would feel a little odd in a deck other than Doran, the Siege Tower as it stands.
Bramble Sovereign - its a 4/4 for 4 which stat wise for the mana isn't half bad. You can totally curve this creature and start turning sideways with it soon after while leaving opponents with some amount of worry about its ability later. I can come up with a big slew of creatures I would not mind copying in the deck as well but it makes me question how useful it really is. It seems like it would be at its best when run in an ETB or Death based creature deck where you are not just further extending fatties into a wrath. The cost of paying two more mana to make another fatty seems.... a little questionable here.
Grothama, All-Devouring - this guy is powerful but he lacks evasion. I think the potential for him to backfire and opponents to draw cards is actually better mitigated by building him as a commander than played in the 99.
Pir's Whim - Its ramp and negative tempo for opponents. I love hating on artifacts and enchantments in this deck as well as having some really great utility lands. This seems like something I really really want to make room to test.
Krav, the Unredeemed - We are not really a sac based deck but I guess there is something to be said about the fact that we kind of do run token tactics. You could also feasibly fire off his ability multiple times to trigger lifegain effects for some effects that care about the number of lifegain triggers and or when they go off as well. My issue I guess is more that if I can stick token production long enough to play and use this guy I feel that I fall into the winmore timeframe for this guy. I just see more times than not that this guy will not be a good thing to play but its interesting to think of some fun tricks with some of my lifegain matters stuffs.
Virtus the Veiled - If it had been a two drop I probably would have windmill slammed it into my list but being a three drop puts it in competition with Tymna which makes it essentially a 4 drop at which point I am not ok with it.
Archfiend of Despair - its sort of interesting and fun but its cost is super high. It is kind of a winmore card that makes a good boardstate better and a bad boardstate still bad. I think its possible that some other commander could make more use of it than we would here.
Inner Demon - So, I think about putting this on Tymna and using it as a cheap sweeper effect. Turning Tymna into a 4/4 flying lifelinker while also potentially tempo murdering opponents commanders does in fact sound fun to me. I do have something like 9 creatures that might get played before Tymna that this does jack with as well as some of my token production but overall, I think this is actually maybe a decent little tempo style of wrath that can give me evasion and size for Tymna. Unlike normal Pyroclasm effects which are often very narrow this comes with a voltron pump for one of our creatures which might be the difference in connecting and drawing more cards. The biggest concern I have offhand is that Tymna is already a target for me and the potential to 2 for 1 myself is a real concern on top of the cost to cast this and spend 7 mana combined plus 2 for 1 myself vs cheap spot removal.
Mindblade Render - It is kind of cool from the standpoint that its a two drop creature that could draw 2 cards a turn if played on curve. It has a lot of concerning parts though too like the fact that its a 1/3 and if you don't curve it.... it feels questionable. I think realistically I would probably still run Dark Confidant over it even with the concern of hitting myself harder with the card the fact that it has better stats and has natural draw that does not require it to connect.
Stunning Reversal - It is a cool kind of a card but being that we could run Teferi's Protection in this deck I would more likely not run reversal over that. I think this is a really cool kind of a card but I think it has a lot of weaknesses still. Stunning Reversal is the kind of card I would want to try out potentially in a deck like Toshiro Umezawa assuming I was still playing him.
Thrilling Encore - This is another really cool card but it is going to play best into a draw go style of control deck or a deck with lots of wraths or a deck with sac based tactics. None of those fit this deck and so I am going to pass on it.
Virtus's Maneuver - Realistically, its actually a fairly decent card. Most of the time with Fleshbag Marauder you sacrifice it to itself or possibly some junk token. Overall the body on Fleshbag is not very relivant other than if you have means to abuse creatures. Considering we are not really a creature abuse deck (in the sense of looping creatures, ETB shinanigans, or death focus) this spell probably fits better in that we can rez from it. If we were to run Fleshbag Marauder here it would be a one and done effect at which point this spell is probably just stronger here. If someone for instance were to wrath our board, its often that we are not the immediate next player to go and so this spell could potentially take away the rebuild of other players.
Archon of Valor's Reach - I think this is a cool card. That said I think it is going to be hard to be super relivant outside of cutting off a theme based deck from their theme. So if you see a colorless deck and you cut off artifacts, yea its going to be brutal. If you play against an enchantress deck and cut off enchantments, yea that is probably good too. The problem is that answers can come from so many different places that I would probably have to pick artifact or sorcery as what I choose on average with this card in this deck. I see this card a lot more appealing for a Gaddoc Teeg deck where instants tend to be highly concerning given spot removal and Cyclonic Rift.
If I had to rate the cards from this set in the order that I would rate them in the following order in terms of which ones I have expectations for:
I think I am likely to have good results with Pir's Whim and Virtus's Maneuver and beyond that I am likely to wait to pull the trigger on.
DECK CHANGE:
Purify -> Pir's Whim of my noncreature sweepers I would rate Purify as the low hanging fruit of them. This change swaps the hope from aiming to get a value sweeper to something where I could curve cast it and even just hit a little bit of ramp from my opponents and ramp me. Given how many cards I have to hate on noncreatures and that this was my worst and about as hard to tutor as it gets (being that in these colors only black unconditional tutors can get it) I am fine with cutting it for something that might function similarly but with positive value for me.
Woodland Bellower -> Virtus's Maneuver the bellower was always a little questionable when I added it. When looking for room to make a cut it quickly came up as a potential. Virtus's Maneuver looks like a great recovery tool just in how much it does for how little mana it does it. I think that the overall impact to the board will be more to my benefit with this change and it will cost me less mana to do it.
Congrats on primer status. I had just started looking into these two a couple of days ago for an Abzan midrange deck and had just started combing through the thread.
Congrats on primer status. I had just started looking into these two a couple of days ago for an Abzan midrange deck and had just started combing through the thread.
Sounds good. Let me know if you have any questions or feedback.
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Lena, Selfless Champion I do like the idea of making a bunch of tokens and the sacrifice to defend a board of tokens is also kind of nice. I guess my hesitation is in part the low stats she has which translates to only protecting small utility creatures and small tokens. I guess I would personally prefer better protection or better token production. It feels like both of them are a little so so for the mana cost here. If she cost less or had better stats it would probably change my mind a little on her but right now I don't think she measures up.
Leonin Warleader obviously it has a lot in common with Hero of Bladehold. The fact that the tokens have lifelink could be an upside for some of the whenever you gain life triggers in here. On the other hand hero has battle cry which results in stronger attacks. I could see a bit of an argument for either one but right now its not an effect I am looking to add.
Remorseful Cleric its a two drop flyer with utility. I think its not half bad but grave hate is something I currently have a lot of overlap access to right now so I don't think its something I am too interested in right now. I think the graveyard hate I have now feels like it fits better and is abundant enough.
Resplendent Angel So.... this is an interesting thought in my mind. I would still prioritize Tymna over this as a three drop probably but I could see curving this and seeing if I could set up a turn 5 Ikra Shidiqi which would give me access to curving a token. It is sort of tricky in that I can't always guarantee that I can trigger to gain enough life for the angel token but at the same time, the idea of getting 7/7 worth of flyers for 3 mana sounds really.... really appealing.
Suncleanser this ability seems too situational for me. I like that its a two drop and the total stats for a two drop are decent but 1/4 is an odd stat line. Its not aggressive enough and I don't see the need to have access to this utility in far too many games.
Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma so, size wise I think he is decent, he has a decent buff on attack, and I like the cost reduction he adds. It is a bit unfortunate that he doesn't have trample. Going through my list though I noticed that there was only like 7/34 creatures that would be cost reduced by his effect though. This is a cool effect but I don't think he quite fits my list as he is.
Runic Armasaur its a cool kind of hatebear but I think ultimately its a bit of a meta question as to how often he will trigger. Being that he is a three drop puts him off curve too. Overall, he seems cool but I think ultimately its a question of how many fetchlands, utility lands, and ability tap commanders you see in your meta.
Overall, Resplendent Angel might be worth testing. I was hoping Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma might also be good here but a lack of evasion paired with an issue of how few cards I was cost reducing convinced me not to run him. Resplendent Angel is a little dependant on me building up a few things or activating its ability which is a little concerning but it seems like Ikra Shidiqi does a lot of work with the angel in that free 4/4 vigilant flyer tokens every turn should be a decent bit of pressure.
DECK CHANGES:
Angelic Field Marshal -> Resplendent Angel the vigilance and size of Angelic is ok I guess but I like the continuous growing threat of Resplendant. It really seems to combine well with some of the lifegain effects in the list especially with Ikra Shidiqi. I want to at least give the card a shot and see how it performs for me.
Odric, Lunarch Marshal -> Caustic Caterpillar Odric has been a little more odd for me as I have shifted a little more towards control based creatures. It seems to have a little more effect when swarming big and trying to be the aggressor. I was debating between Caustic Caterpillar and Qasali Pridemage but decided I wanted more one drops to try to curve a little better. Its really not that different from Reclimation Sage but considering I am trying to avoid playing 3 drop creatures I like that the caterpillar could curve me into more draw potentially.
Twilight Prophet -> Dusk Legion Zealot the prophet felt slow as all hell when I managed to play it the one time I did. I even revealed Avacyn like immediately afterwards (which is like the biggest drain option) and it still just felt..... awkward to play. Dusk Legion Zealot gives me more options to curve early plays and its a cheap cantrip later.
World Shaper -> Tribute to the Wild so, World Shaper just feels slow and like I don't have the right interactions for it here. The ideal kind of deck for it would be a list with sac outlets and that is not really my priority here. Tribute to the Wild is a card that has been growing on me due to its cheap cost and efficiency of removal even though I don't really get to pick what is being destroyed, its efficiency of removing potentially several artifacts / enchantments for two mana at instant speed has been solid for me in some other decks. I want to give it a bit more testing and see how it plays.
Virtus's Maneuver -> Anguished Unmaking So, I feel like I am kind of over Virtus's Maneuver right now. Its an interesting card but it just hasn't been what I need. I had cut into a lot of my spot removal but I think I am ok with recovering a little bit of it. The ability to deal with anything and exile it is helpful vs indestructible targets on occasion so I am ok with bringing some of it back.
I am happy to lower my curve and try to move a bit faster. After FNM last week I ended up playing against a stax deck where I only had my Squee deck on me. This week I am hoping that player comes back as he was fun to play against even though I knew I didn't have a good deck to play against him. This deck should be a fairly good pair given it moves faster and has lots of interaction for artifacts / enchantments which seemed to be a lot of what he was playing.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
Bounty Agent - its a two drop creature which is very useful for drawing cards early. It also doubles as removal but it still really bothers me that this can't hit planeswalkers or lands considering how rarely lands are legendary it felt fine to me. Still though, its handy that it can act as a creature based removal for a lot of commanders as needed while also serving as a two drop to keep early pressure up and draw more cards.
Citywide Bust - its kind of an odd wrath but we are kind of a tokenish deck so maybe? I think ultimately it lacks versatility and so when its great then cool but when it doesn't fit what you need it has no versatility to do something else.
Crush Contraband - Given how many artifact / enchantment sweepers are in here I don't think we really need this but if you see a high abundance of indestructible gods / darksteel plate effects it could be something to consider. That said though I think its also viable to consider Return to Dust and Sylvan Reclamation. As of right now I don't think its something I need but I can see reasons to include some count of these effects especially if you encounter a lot of gods.
Dawn of Hope - its a cool effect and I think its on theme. That said, this deck has fairly decent draw as is and I think this effect is better for lifegain decks that struggle with card advantage. The extra mana per card drawn really slows a deck like this down and the cost / token is not great in comparison to what we can do.
Divine Visitation - It reminds me a little bit of a Doubling Season type of effect. It does literally nothing on its own and in a lot of cases where you were already doing alright or doing very well it makes it better. I often intentionally avoid these cards because they complicate your board and tend to be sort of winmore. Sure, it would be a lot of fun to be firing off angles like nobody's business but a lot of our tokens are already good quality tokens as it is so I question it here. It will probably fit better in a wider token based strategy and or in decks where the commander itself makes tokens to give a more reliable and known token source. This deck isn't focused on needing tokens for what it does so I think that is another reason why I won't be using it here but it could be fairly sweet in the right deck.
GREEN:
Beast Whisperer - drawing cards is great and this deck does play creatures. This all said, I think the ideal place for this kind of card tends to be in decks that play a LOT more cheap creatures like say a Shadowborn Apostle deck or perhaps an elf deck. I do run cheap creatures in my list but I also already have solid draw and the complexity of drawing with this one seems questionable and like it is trying to force a specific build that I don't really feel I quite fit here.
Nullhide Ferox - its big for the mana but it lacks evasion and hexproof seems less useful than having something like trample would. To me this creature is like a bad Abyssal Persecutor and I would probably go back to playing him before running something like this.
Sprouting Renewal - If this card had been an instant instead of sorcery I think I would have actually considered it here. Being that we are a token deck this card quickly turns into Naturalize or better given convoke but the fact that its a sorcery is ultimately why I am left with sort of nothing here. Move along.
BLACK:
Burglar Rat - hummmmm normally on a two drop creature you only get a single opponent to discard. Being that this hits each opponent it might actually weigh in closer to Elvish Visionary in terms of value. There are pros and cons to each idea though as we don't really have a lot of discard in this build so its entirely likely to be less value for us to have one single effect in the list that opponents discard a single card for it. If you play it on curve they might just discard some big 6+ mana card. Its an interesting thought but offhand I suspect it won't be as powerful as Elvish Visionary given a number of issues.
Doom Whisperer - it has good stats, good evasion, and is a good life sink. This isn't really a graveyard based deck but still, this could be an extremely useful digging tool to find relevant cards to draw and sort of serving like a poor man's tutor at times. I think I likely will try to at least get this in for testing.
Mausoleum Secrets - its kind of slow given we aren't a graveyard based deck. Its an interesting effect and I like that they kept the cost low but being we are a multicolored deck I don't think I would use it here. I did think fondly back to my Toshiro deck when I saw this though and it could be useful in multicolored decks too but I think you would want to be sort of self milling based for this.
Plaguecrafter - it really is a better Fleshbag Marauder effect for most decks outside of ones where you are looking for a specific creature type. I don't think it quite fits here but its cool to see yet another one of these effects especially given the slight improvement in the ability for probably a lot of decks.
MULTI:
Assassin's Trophy - so, this seems quite solid and ultimately if I hold off on this card it will probably be due to the fact that I don't think the price tag as it stands is worth it for commander for what this does. I think this looks completely amazing for modern and even in standard this card seems great but for commander, this is very similar to Anguished Unmaking / Beast Within given the difference in mana costs is a lot less relevant (for most non cEDH decks). Giving opponents a land is also a downside and as of right now, I am actually not running Beast Within in my list. I did want to mention though that this card does look really good but I also don't know that I would say the price tag justifies what it will do for this format.
Camaraderie - I guess the closest card I can compare this to in my current list is Rishkar's Expertise. Given that Rishkar's also lets me cast a spell for free that costs almost as much as the card draw effect though the actual mana expenditure for it is incredibly cheap. For this type of deck I do think this card would compete with something like Garruk, Primal Hunter but really I think its still quite a bit short of the draw I am actually running. Being that I am somewhat between a fatty and token deck its nice to see something like this but given it adds a very small buff with no evasion, I think its fair to compare this effect with Shamanic Revelation. If my tokens went wider than they do in this deck I might like this effect more than I do.
Emmara, Soul of the Accord - I like her from the standpoint that she could come down early and make tokens. My issue is that I really don't have effects to tap her to other than attacking later. She would fit better if I ran something like Earthcraft or more means to give her evasion so as of right now I just feel like she would drop off soon after turn 4/5 and really be unlikely to provide me with tokens or any other utility later.
Golgari Findbroker - its another Eternal Witness like card. The downside though is it costs more, is more color intensive, and it can't recover non permanents to hand. Eternal Witness only squeaks by in my list due to the fact of how diverse it can recover added to the tutor diversity it adds. I really don't see myself adding a second, worse effect to my list.
Knight of Autumn - I want to love this card and in standard / modern / limited I likely will. The problem in this format is that it is never going to be all that viable being anything but Reclimation Sage and its not an improvement over that here. It will be great in other formats for its versatility
March of the Multitudes - this card seems like it could have potential. I like how they all have lifelink which could be silly with something like Archangel of Thune or Karlov of the Ghost Council. Ultimately though my deck is built more for efficient fatties and good solid tokens rather than making a bunch of small ones and giving them some sort of anthem. I like this effect, I just don't think it fits this deck.
Trostani Discordant - if you encounter some issues with theft I think this is a good solid creature to have access to. The anthem and tokens are just kind of ok though so I think based on the stats and tokens she makes, I think she comes up short. I think this is a solid roleplayer vs theft though if you see a bit of that though.
Underrealm Lich - super robust, acceptable stat line, and he IMPROVES card draw. I like how I feel like I could over extend my board into him and not really be risking much of anything more. This guy isn't super impressive as a 4/3 for 5 but lets be honest here, how often do you see a lot of 3/X creatures running about doing combat in commander. Anything bigger than a 2/2 often has to be double blocked or a 6/6 has to get in the way. Given we have lifegain to offset keeping him indestructible as needed I really like this guy. I will definitely be trying to test him out.
Vraska, Golgari Queen - she doesn't have enough upfront value for commander. In other formats she is kind of scary given how much loyalty she can stack on quickly for the mana but in commander she just doesn't do enough upfront. She is a value over time walker with not enough upfront impact.
Find // Finality - I don't hate the versatility of this card but the fact that Finality kills Tymna even if you put the counters on her really sucks. I think I am going to pass but its an interesting card.
Flower // Flourish - versatility is nice but its not as powerful as Tithe or Overrun and given that both options seem like poor man's copies of those two cards I don't think its strong enough for a good commander deck offhand. It might be useful in a budget go wide deck but I don't see it here.
Overall, this set is actually fairly solid. I wanted to get through my set review first so hopefully I can figure out changes next but I didn't have time and I wanted to get my set review done and in first. I don't bump this thread all that much anyways so figuring out my changes later will give me some time to think on these. The bolded cards are the ones I felt worth paying attention to for this build offhand so its likely that they would be among the ones I am contemplating.
I'm a long time lurker of this decklist. I absolutely love this deck, with the synergy, speed, and the explosiveness. Not sure if you've updated your decklist with the recent sets that has rolled out.
I was wondering what you think about Vizkopa Guildmage and Vito, Dawn of the Dusk Rose. On paper, if I play Vito on turn 4, then Ikra on turn 5, someone will be taking a lot of damage, and essentially does double the damage (or more). And if it survives one more turn, use Vito's ability to give everything lifelink, and watch people die. Granted, I play a bit more spot removal than you, which might work out better in my list. Vizkopa Guildmage is a similar idea, and I need to test it a bit more.
I also added Emeria's Call, which actually helped me win a game, when I drew 3 mana dorks from my Tymna trigger. I also have Agadeem's Awakening in the deck, which helps me recover after a board wipe, and doubles as a land when I don't need it. Losing 3 life isn't that bad in this deck, for the flexibility that it brings.
I'm really hesitant to remove Woodland Bellower from my list. I usually keep it in my hand, until I get board wiped. Then I play the Bellower, tutor for Eternal Witness, and grab another threat from my GY. Then play Tymna and start drawing cards again. How's your experience with it?
I play Genesis Wave in a similar way, to rebuild my board.
I've also took out Oracle of Mul Daya for Dryad of the Ilysian Grove. The 4 mana on Oracle has always seemed a bit steep, and I feel that there's enough redundancy with the effect. Though it can't play lands off the top, I think I can live with that, and not revealing every card I draw to my opponent.
Also really interested in how Underrealm Lich has worked for you? Five mana seems really steep. I've progressively decreased the cmc of everything over time.
I'm a long time lurker of this decklist. I absolutely love this deck, with the synergy, speed, and the explosiveness. Not sure if you've updated your decklist with the recent sets that has rolled out.
I was wondering what you think about Vizkopa Guildmage and Vito, Dawn of the Dusk Rose. On paper, if I play Vito on turn 4, then Ikra on turn 5, someone will be taking a lot of damage, and essentially does double the damage (or more). And if it survives one more turn, use Vito's ability to give everything lifelink, and watch people die. Granted, I play a bit more spot removal than you, which might work out better in my list. Vizkopa Guildmage is a similar idea, and I need to test it a bit more.
I also added Emeria's Call, which actually helped me win a game, when I drew 3 mana dorks from my Tymna trigger. I also have Agadeem's Awakening in the deck, which helps me recover after a board wipe, and doubles as a land when I don't need it. Losing 3 life isn't that bad in this deck, for the flexibility that it brings.
I'm really hesitant to remove Woodland Bellower from my list. I usually keep it in my hand, until I get board wiped. Then I play the Bellower, tutor for Eternal Witness, and grab another threat from my GY. Then play Tymna and start drawing cards again. How's your experience with it?
I play Genesis Wave in a similar way, to rebuild my board.
I've also took out Oracle of Mul Daya for Dryad of the Ilysian Grove. The 4 mana on Oracle has always seemed a bit steep, and I feel that there's enough redundancy with the effect. Though it can't play lands off the top, I think I can live with that, and not revealing every card I draw to my opponent.
Also really interested in how Underrealm Lich has worked for you? Five mana seems really steep. I've progressively decreased the cmc of everything over time.
Sorry, I don't check in here all that often anymore. This list is one that I think back to fondly from time to time and I have considered rebuilding it a few times. I won't go into a deep dive on potentail adds to this deck but offhand there are a few that come to mind that I would consider:
Field of the Dead - This deck runs plenty of types of lands and more creatures in play tend to be great. Its a tad slow but it will give you a lot of late game gas which I think is a positive for this type of deck. This deck has fetches and plenty of lands / draw so this seems great here. The downside of this card tends to be if you draw it in your opening hands / immediately but I think the long term payoff is really high.
Speaker of the Heavens - its a one drop so it curves in before Tymna which is great. I always struggled to find enough good one drops. Later in the game it comes in and probably gets to just fire angels everywhere so I like it both early and late which is something I am a big fan of for one drops.
Cleansing Nova - I ran a few destroy all artifact / enchantment concepts such as Fracturing Gust. I guess I would at least consider this in place of one of those due to its versatility in that it can still be a wrath if needed.
Drannith Magistrate - It fits well with the curve this deck wants and it can completely wreck someone's proactive curve. Its very disruptive and it fits the strong creatures in the 2 or less mana range we want.
Hushbringer - Evasive hatebear also fitting the 2 or less mana drop we like to see. I have a hard time including hatebears but hitting ETB and dies triggers might be enough. If you see much for aristocrat decks I actually think the dies trigger might be more relevant than the ETB for me in my current meta but thats probably unusual. I think that this sort of effect is heavily a meta decision as to if you will get enough out of it.
Order of Midnight - Its kind of a weird gravedigger but its a two drop with evasion that curves well into Tymna and later on that gravedigger effect might be useful. Its worth consideration at least.
I mostly looked at cheap creatures in standard to come up with that list. Cleansing Nova is a good card as well that I recalled thinking about shortly after I put my own list away which is the only reason it came to mind for me. Some of the when you gain life triggers lately have gotten better but I don't know if there are any that I would actually include as of right now.
Vizkopa Guildmage / Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose they seem a little bit winmore to me to be honest. I might have a slight preference of the Guildmage because it curves into Tymna still giving you a two drop but I think that what these creatures do ultimately is a little bit winmore. If you are in a situation where you are attacking for a bunch and gaining a bunch of life already I feel like you are already probably in a good situation. When you aren't set up and doing great things these cards likely aren't going to dig you out of a bad place. I tend to avoid these type of cards often even though I see the potential for when they would work.
Emeria's Call - I think the mythic rarity cycle of these cards where you can bolt yourself for them untapped are great and should be considered in a lot of lists. The hardest thing is you really have to consider them as sort of a replacement for basic lands so make sure you have plenty of basic lands in the list still too. I think these are great though. I would probably prioritize the black one first, then the green one in a list like this. The white one seems to often be the bottom of the barrel for my own priority but I think they are all fine.
Woodland Bellower - I think this card is fine. I guess for me its sort of an extra body tutor but the big question is how much you value any specific three drop in your list. I tend to like it a bit more when I have three drops that I have a lot of value behind in a list like say if you have a Selvala, Heart of the Wilds in your 99 at which point you pay six mana to get, put her into play, and have a big creature paired with her to make you a ton more mana. I personally didn't see a ton of value in a chonky six drop creature with no evasions in my own list but I guess it would depend on what creatures you have. With a deck that has as much draw as we can get from Tymna I guess I would be hesitant to run bellower myself as a recovery plan over something like adding Enlightened Tutor which could get you Greater Good or Necropotence for a recovery plan. My point with bellower I guess is more that what you just described seems like a very responsive sit in the hand and rot plan where as you could possibly instead include something like Living Death to accomplish that same thing. I tend to like the bellower a lot more myself when I have proactive gameplans that involve casting it. He tends to be better as well when running some ETB focused concepts.
Oracle of Mul Daya vs Dryad of the Ilysian Grove - Given that Tymna is a three drop I tend to veer away from three drops a little just because often times my plan on that mana is taken already. I think given how proactive this deck is in that most of the creatures can be played at any time I don't worry about revealing my draws to opponents that much. The fact that we get to stagger more draws with Tymna means that you can rip a land after your draw for the turn as well as after drawing from Tymna so that top deck land peak function is actually quite useful. Beyond that we have plenty of tutors and fetchlands which also give access to additional land drops which is just amazing free value. I get the concern with showing what you draw to opponents but I think that matters a lot more when running more traditional control elements like Swords to Plowshars and Counterspells. Most of our creatures can be played anytime and threaten to take over the board on their own.
Underrealm Lich - I have played it in a few decks so far and I guess I have not been impressed. I think its a better card for decks that are trying to get resources in the graveyard than it is for draw quality offhand. I have actually killed myself due to this effect before so I guess its also worth saying that it can be a liability as well.
DECK CHANGES:
I am not as sold on the Lightning Greaves. I considered the possibility of like Painful Truths or some other draw or protection effect as well. Its possible that something like say Benevolent Bodyguard could also protect Tymnia and draw some cards early but I was worried that that might be something too focused on curving in rather than something that might be useful later. I do run Avacyn, Angel of Hope and I really do like pairing her with Lightning Greaves so.... like I said, I am not totally sold on that one but I think it has some viability and I am willing to try it out.
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[Modern] Allies
DECK CHANGES:
I had a few other things that I put somewhat high on my considerations as well which I did not make a move on right now but I was considering them.
Dark Confidant - it has been doing some good work for me in my vampire deck. My curve here is a lot worse though but I also have a lot of lifegain in the deck. He also curves well into Tymnia which seems kind of nice. There is still the concern of all of the 6-8 drops that I dont really want to pay that much life to draw butttt I do have recovery tools in the deck to sort of deal with that.
Stoneforge Mystic - I recently went from 1 to 2 equipment. Its a 2 drop creature as well but if I stoneforge for an equipment I am going to have to push off playing that equipment as it doesnt really curve all that well with Tymnia.
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[Modern] Allies
DECK CHANGE:
I want to get more testing in because of how many changes I have gone through of late. Ulvenwald Tracker was a little funky just given that I have more smaller sized creatures now than I had previously. Karlov of the Ghost Council was fairly good but it was a little funky given I felt like I needed to have a bunch of creatures connecting when I drew him a little later but I did manage to get his counters up enough to remove a target. Bastion Protector was kind of cool given the two commanders, I did draw it a bit later but I drew it alongside Odric, Lunarch Marshal with a Lightning Greaves in play so it turned into like indestructible, mennace, haste, trample given what I had at the time. I almost did tons of work with Archangel of Thune but I got spot removed as I moved to put on Lightning Greaves on turn 6 (right behind Ikra lol).
So, I guess right now I want to try out Angel of Condemnation again because it looks like it could give me an evasive beater and it could act as some disruption from wraths or even spot removal and it could also disrupt my opponents things. I didn't ever actually draw it in this deck so while I did previously cut it I am still interested in how it might work for me.
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[Modern] Allies
DECK CHANGE:
This is kind of upcoming but I think Ghalta, Primal Hunger looks quite interesting for this deck as well. It comes back a little to questioning how many fatties I do run and how I can best take advantage of him but I think he is totally in the running as a strong possible that I will enjoy
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I had two great games this week. I ended up winning one and losing one but I was unaware that one of the decks was a combo deck that ended up winning very suddenly which I had not expected. I had never played against the player before and he was playing a Teysa deck which can be combo but it can also be a fair token control deck too. I don't like to just run people out of the game because I don't know them so I tend to prefer to assume they play non combo decks over combo until they prove me otherwise.
GAME 1:
Three player FFA game with opponents being Rakdos, Lord of Riots and Teysa, Orzhov Scion. We roll and I am last. My opening hand I keep which is: Mana Crypt, Chrome Mox, 2 lands, Anguished Unmaking, Sylvan Library, Crested Sunmare.
T1: land, Mana Crypt (I wont bother mentioning every time but Mana Crypt hits me almost every turn), Chrome Mox, Tymna the Weaver. Rakdos plays a Sol Ring + Cryptolith Fragment. His first land entered tapped so this is his turn two.
T2: land, Tymna attacks Rakdos because he is having a crazy start. I play Crested Sunmare after drawing a card. Rakdos plays his commander + Lightning Greaves and attacks me. Teysa plays Bitterblossom.
T3: land, Teysa agrees to not block my commander in exchange I don't also swing a horse at him. I swing the two horses at the Rakdos player. I end up drawing a bunch of extra lands so I play Azusa, Lost but Seeking into Forgotten Ancient. I get another horse at end step. Rakdos swings at me again but doesn't seem to have much for creatures in hand so he plays Manabarbs. Teysa plays Ashnod's Altar.
T4: I move my counters from Forgotten Ancient onto Tymna so I can have a bigger lifelinker. My life is looking a little worse for wear so I play Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper and swing my creatures back primarily at Rakdos. I play Greater Good to end my turn and make another horse. Rakdos swings at me and brings my commander damage from him up to 18 he drew and played Conduit of Ruin but it looks a little slow given I can probably run him down the next turn given the 27 damage I have already done to him not to mention the greater good dig for answers I can probably do next turn. Teysa plays his commander and utilizing the tokens he has from Bitterblossom and Ashnod's Altar manages to tutor for Darkest Hour which then gives him infinite colorless mana. He also happens to have Skullclamp so he draws essentially his deck off of his infinite tokens and infinite mana and then plays Blasting Station to infinte damage the two of us. I dig in my top 20-30 cards to see if I have a BW answer for two but I dont really run much of that here.
So.... that one ended on turn 5 (turn 4 me). It kind of sucked as I had a great start but I guess this guy is combo and found all the pieces super quick. If I had known he was playing a combo deck I probably would have given more consideration to keeping the opening hand Anguished Unmaking or finding an answer to the Ashnod's. The game looked really good all in all and I suspect given the Greater Good that I probably could have found my way to an answer or way to not die to Rakdos attacking me the next turn and from there it looked like it was going to be a great game for me.
Game 2:
Same two opponents but they changed their decks to be Child of Alara (the rakdos player) and The Locust God (the teysa player). I win the roll and am going first this time. My opening hand is something along the lines of: 3 lands, Bloom Tender, Karlov of the Ghost Council, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Heroic Intervention.
T1: land
T2: land, Bloom Tender
T3: land, Tymna the Weaver, Karlov of the Ghost Council (off of the bloom tender). Child plays a Propaganda. Locus God plays a Mana Vault. (I kind of hear Locus God contemplating a wheel)
T4: land, Odric, Lunarch Marshal odric shares out lifelink so I swing with Karlov and Tymna at locus god since I dont want to pay to attack yet. I keep mana up for possibly needing Heroic Intervention given my option was to swing for counters on Karlov or having protection. Child plays Horn of Greed. The Locust God plays his a Magus of the Wheel.
T5: land, I feel like next turn Locust God plans to play his commander and wheel for tokens so I look at the Avacyn, Angel of Hope I just drew and felt it was better to tap out play her than it was to risk the wheel. I swing my creatures and pump Karlov up to a 12/12. Child plays Teferi's Puzzle Box (really questionably given our locus god opponent). Locus God gets his commander into play and keeps the wheel up which I find a little curious but its possible with the Puzzle Box in play he wants to keep it for when he feels he has a bad hand rather than try to disrupt now. He does play a land after his commander and draws a card / makes a token.
T6: I untap and during my upkeep I Fracturing Gust to blow away the Teferi's Puzzle Box given it looks like it will just give the game to Locus God not to mention I wanted to kill the Propaganda for a while and just had not had the reason to do it yet. I swing a few creatures at both opponents. Locus God tries to wheel to make blockers but he forgot about Karlov so I remove counters and zap his commander in response. He feels utterly crushed and concedes on the spot. Child plays an Aetherflux Reservoir but is looking at like 30 life to my 60-80.
T7: I swing a bunch of creatures at the Child player and sit back on my Teferi's Protection knowing that Karlov got a lot bigger and his next turn is his last. Child cant come up with a defense and he dies on my turn 8.
So, a few good games for some highlights. I got some fast mana each game upfront which does help and I didn't feel like I got disrupted all that much which might have come back to it being three player games instead of the usual 4-6 that I usually have to deal with. So, I guess some feedback from my games... I keep questioning if I should be running more cheap instant speed interaction to disrupt combo a bit more. I don't want to go too rogue but I think I would like just a little more disruption for the combo players. I don't play against that stuff enough that I think it needs to be my priority and I didn't feel like I didn't get to play the game when I did face combo so its not too bad but I wanted just a little more.
DECK CHANGES:
So, I do think these changes will help. Some of these changes are me slowly adapting to my new meta as I see a little more combo and spot removal and a little less on the wraths front. The deck has been moving very quickly and I have liked most of what its been doing so its just a matter of fine tuning it for my own needs as well as shifts in who I am playing against. I did end up keeping Golgari Charm of my anti wrath instants but that is also in part because of how versatile that card really can be. If I could get another Selfless Spirit at the same mana / same ability I would totally put it in my list in an instant. The instant speed spells have proven to be harder to include and use though so for now I think I am right in scaling them back. I have always had an issue with those kind of spells in decks that are very actively trying to get things done as it doesn't leave me much mana to try to use them with.
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[Modern] Allies
DECK CHANGE:
Overall, I have been really enjoying the increase in my 2 drops. I have been trying a bit more for early game creatures who scale well into the late game and I think I have been having some better success due to that. Karlov of the Ghost Council has been an absolute beast combined with Ikra Shidiqi. The early game potential of this deck has been really solid for me and its ability to keep moving resources has been great too. I had some games last week where my opponents had sweepers / spot removal and they had a really hard time keeping up with me as well as how many targets I continuously had and the value I was pushing. One of my new pushes is to try to have a lot of different targets beyond just trying to answer Tymna ever time she shows her head and that has been feeling a lot better for me.
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[Modern] Allies
I also gave some consideration to Ghalta, Primal Hunger and Vona's Hunger but for various reasons I have decided they don't fit here. I will try to outline my reasons on them more in a set review.
I have also been mulling over Crop Rotation lately. It's also possible that something like Sylvan Scrying might be solid. I was kind of thinking about Crop Rotation from the standpoint that upfront Hall of the Bandit Lord could be really strong but it would really have to be put in play in the first two turns which Sylvan Scrying is not as friendly for doing. If I could cast Tymna with haste though it would make for a very strong start to the same degree that ramping into her might have. Later in the game a nonbasic land tutor could get me Gaea's Cradle so in a sense it would still be very strong. I was mulling over taking Deathrite Shaman out for Crop Rotation potentially... but I think it would possibly also make me want to go back and bring Bojuka Bog back in as well. I am going to keep mulling that over but I think its also possible to make a cut somewhere else. I just think that Crop Rotation does feel like it could be strong here.
I am looking forward to seeing what else we see from this set. So far the cards have been kind of crazy as I did not think that there would even be two cards I would consider for this deck and already I am seeing some great potential for this deck.
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[Modern] Allies
Deck Changes:
Overall, the mana costs of things stay about the same. I am trying to bring up the number of "must answer" cards in this deck to ideally force people to use answers on things other than Tymna as well as wrath me with less of my own cards in play. These changes should increase my ability to swarm as well as my ramp capability.
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DECK CHANGE:
I have had the Visionary in the list for a little bit (just cut it as the full set if Rivals of Ixilan was fully revealed) but I still have not seen it yet. It is possible that I might also have to consider Dusk Legion Zealot but I want to wait and see how Elvish Visionary does for me first. I sort of love writing primers because in writing about every card sometimes you catch that some cards you assumed were working might not be as well as you thought.
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[Modern] Allies
One thought I had though was to maybe replace Lurking Predators with Journey to Eternity. Since you run a lot of relatively cheap creatures, you're not cheating al that much on mana cost. And with 66% of your deck not being a creature, I think this effect misses 2 out of 3 times. Journey on the other hand, makes your deck much more resilient against boardwipes. You can protect a strong creature on the board and thereafter you have a repeating source of card advantage, allowing you to keep Zombifying creatures. It's also cheaper manawise. I think it would add more to the deck's resilience than Lurking Predators does.
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
Sorry for the delay in response, I was working out some changes in my head and some of them are still a little fuzzy so I was trying to sort them out before I posted what I was changing.
Lurking Predators -> Journey to Eternity lets start by talking about both cards and what they do as well as how they might interact.
Lurking Predators - I run this card because its fast acting, it also serves as both tempo as well as card draw in that it sort of bypasses the need to draw cards and it just puts them right into play. If it hits play the next player could use spot removal on it but even in that first flip I could flip a creature into play. In general I assume that my opponents will cast something like 1-1.5 cards per turn (which is just sort of a figure I made up on the spot given my own personal observances) which mean that in a turn rotation I should see 3-4.5 cards in a turn rotation which means it should give me a free creature per turn as both a draw plus play effect. The important part of this card is that I only have to pay for the card upfront and it continues to generate value and it gets to its value quickly.
Journey to Eternity - I run two sac outlets and a single creature that can self sacrifice in this deck. I think this card is really cool but I also think that for it to be decent you really need the ability to kill the creature you put it on which I don't feel that I have access to. I think that paying 6 mana with Atzal, Cave of Eternity to rez a creature from grave to play is actually quite strong I just don't see how I can reliably get to the back side of the card which is why I am thinking I will probably pass on it.
Circling back to why I run lurking, its because its like card draw that also tempo plays the creatures for me. Its fast to generate value and it continues to generate value until it dies. Its a great play post wrath or even to just push lots of potential pressure onto opponents.
With working on the OP I wanted to make a few more adjustments. Writing about the functions of cards really gets me second guessing some of the ones that might not fit and so I love writing primers due to that.
DECK CHANGE:
This is quite a few changes all at once and I hope they work out for me. Some of this is me not liking how a few things have worked or might work as I fumble with their mechanics in my head. As for the new inclusions.... its hard to say. I think Woodland Bellower is a cool card but its another 6 drop which moves my curve up a little. I guess time will tell.
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[Modern] Allies
Dominaria Set Review
Ultimately I don't know that anything from this set is actually enough that I want it in this deck. I can see merit in a few considerations but nothing jumps out enough that I feel I want to make room for it right now.
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[Modern] Allies
Abzan Battlebond Set Review:
If I had to rate the cards from this set in the order that I would rate them in the following order in terms of which ones I have expectations for:
DECK CHANGE:
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[Modern] Allies
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
Sounds good. Let me know if you have any questions or feedback.
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Overall, Resplendent Angel might be worth testing. I was hoping Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma might also be good here but a lack of evasion paired with an issue of how few cards I was cost reducing convinced me not to run him. Resplendent Angel is a little dependant on me building up a few things or activating its ability which is a little concerning but it seems like Ikra Shidiqi does a lot of work with the angel in that free 4/4 vigilant flyer tokens every turn should be a decent bit of pressure.
DECK CHANGES:
I am happy to lower my curve and try to move a bit faster. After FNM last week I ended up playing against a stax deck where I only had my Squee deck on me. This week I am hoping that player comes back as he was fun to play against even though I knew I didn't have a good deck to play against him. This deck should be a fairly good pair given it moves faster and has lots of interaction for artifacts / enchantments which seemed to be a lot of what he was playing.
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WHITE:
GREEN:
BLACK:
MULTI:
Overall, this set is actually fairly solid. I wanted to get through my set review first so hopefully I can figure out changes next but I didn't have time and I wanted to get my set review done and in first. I don't bump this thread all that much anyways so figuring out my changes later will give me some time to think on these. The bolded cards are the ones I felt worth paying attention to for this build offhand so its likely that they would be among the ones I am contemplating.
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I was wondering what you think about Vizkopa Guildmage and Vito, Dawn of the Dusk Rose. On paper, if I play Vito on turn 4, then Ikra on turn 5, someone will be taking a lot of damage, and essentially does double the damage (or more). And if it survives one more turn, use Vito's ability to give everything lifelink, and watch people die. Granted, I play a bit more spot removal than you, which might work out better in my list. Vizkopa Guildmage is a similar idea, and I need to test it a bit more.
I also added Emeria's Call, which actually helped me win a game, when I drew 3 mana dorks from my Tymna trigger. I also have Agadeem's Awakening in the deck, which helps me recover after a board wipe, and doubles as a land when I don't need it. Losing 3 life isn't that bad in this deck, for the flexibility that it brings.
I'm really hesitant to remove Woodland Bellower from my list. I usually keep it in my hand, until I get board wiped. Then I play the Bellower, tutor for Eternal Witness, and grab another threat from my GY. Then play Tymna and start drawing cards again. How's your experience with it?
I play Genesis Wave in a similar way, to rebuild my board.
I've also took out Oracle of Mul Daya for Dryad of the Ilysian Grove. The 4 mana on Oracle has always seemed a bit steep, and I feel that there's enough redundancy with the effect. Though it can't play lands off the top, I think I can live with that, and not revealing every card I draw to my opponent.
Also really interested in how Underrealm Lich has worked for you? Five mana seems really steep. I've progressively decreased the cmc of everything over time.
Sorry, I don't check in here all that often anymore. This list is one that I think back to fondly from time to time and I have considered rebuilding it a few times. I won't go into a deep dive on potentail adds to this deck but offhand there are a few that come to mind that I would consider:
I mostly looked at cheap creatures in standard to come up with that list. Cleansing Nova is a good card as well that I recalled thinking about shortly after I put my own list away which is the only reason it came to mind for me. Some of the when you gain life triggers lately have gotten better but I don't know if there are any that I would actually include as of right now.
Vizkopa Guildmage / Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose they seem a little bit winmore to me to be honest. I might have a slight preference of the Guildmage because it curves into Tymna still giving you a two drop but I think that what these creatures do ultimately is a little bit winmore. If you are in a situation where you are attacking for a bunch and gaining a bunch of life already I feel like you are already probably in a good situation. When you aren't set up and doing great things these cards likely aren't going to dig you out of a bad place. I tend to avoid these type of cards often even though I see the potential for when they would work.
Emeria's Call - I think the mythic rarity cycle of these cards where you can bolt yourself for them untapped are great and should be considered in a lot of lists. The hardest thing is you really have to consider them as sort of a replacement for basic lands so make sure you have plenty of basic lands in the list still too. I think these are great though. I would probably prioritize the black one first, then the green one in a list like this. The white one seems to often be the bottom of the barrel for my own priority but I think they are all fine.
Woodland Bellower - I think this card is fine. I guess for me its sort of an extra body tutor but the big question is how much you value any specific three drop in your list. I tend to like it a bit more when I have three drops that I have a lot of value behind in a list like say if you have a Selvala, Heart of the Wilds in your 99 at which point you pay six mana to get, put her into play, and have a big creature paired with her to make you a ton more mana. I personally didn't see a ton of value in a chonky six drop creature with no evasions in my own list but I guess it would depend on what creatures you have. With a deck that has as much draw as we can get from Tymna I guess I would be hesitant to run bellower myself as a recovery plan over something like adding Enlightened Tutor which could get you Greater Good or Necropotence for a recovery plan. My point with bellower I guess is more that what you just described seems like a very responsive sit in the hand and rot plan where as you could possibly instead include something like Living Death to accomplish that same thing. I tend to like the bellower a lot more myself when I have proactive gameplans that involve casting it. He tends to be better as well when running some ETB focused concepts.
Oracle of Mul Daya vs Dryad of the Ilysian Grove - Given that Tymna is a three drop I tend to veer away from three drops a little just because often times my plan on that mana is taken already. I think given how proactive this deck is in that most of the creatures can be played at any time I don't worry about revealing my draws to opponents that much. The fact that we get to stagger more draws with Tymna means that you can rip a land after your draw for the turn as well as after drawing from Tymna so that top deck land peak function is actually quite useful. Beyond that we have plenty of tutors and fetchlands which also give access to additional land drops which is just amazing free value. I get the concern with showing what you draw to opponents but I think that matters a lot more when running more traditional control elements like Swords to Plowshars and Counterspells. Most of our creatures can be played anytime and threaten to take over the board on their own.
Underrealm Lich - I have played it in a few decks so far and I guess I have not been impressed. I think its a better card for decks that are trying to get resources in the graveyard than it is for draw quality offhand. I have actually killed myself due to this effect before so I guess its also worth saying that it can be a liability as well.
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[Modern] Allies