This section has become outdated compared to the current deck list, Mirror-Mad PhantasmLaboratory Maniac combo. Check the most recent posts for new deck list. This combo is pretty efficient. The list may further evolve to simply protect this instant win combo with the addition of counterspells and Gravepurge type cards which will allow us to continue the game in a good position even if the combo is countered.
1 Introduction
I'm updating this thread to follow the Primer outline. Please excuse the incompleteness/bad formatting. I'm working on getting the most important content up to par first. Check out the newly updated 7 Strategy and 9 Changelog sections. More to come in the following weeks.
Welcome to The Scarab God thread, where the killing and resurrecting keep rolling.
2 Why play this Commander?
The Scarab God offers amazing flexibility in building different kinds of decks. Possible themes are Zombie Tribal, Mill/resurrection strategy, value creatures, and control. If you've ever wanted to build 2 decks for one commander, this is a good choice.
My list is about value creatures/control. It has amazing lategame power and crazy amounts of card advantage. We control what creatures remain on the board through many boardwipes and destroy creature effects. If you want to continuously kill off your opponents commanders while always having yours out, jump on board!
The cons of this deck seem to be few and far between, though more testing is needed. Graveyard hate can hurt us for a while. We can't destroy artifacts/enchantments, so our creatures can get shut out from attacking. Extremely aggro decks might take us down before we can stabilize if we don't draw a boardwipe in time. The slower, more controlling style of gameplay means this deck can get beat out by fast combo decks and the utmost optimized lists. However, you can add more counter spells/instant removal to adjust for this.
The pros are numerous. First of all, the God's return to hand ability ensures that we normally only have to pay 5 to play our commander the entire game. This is, combined with the resurrection ability allows us to run numerous boardwipes. The deck always has something to spend mana on. This is a versatile deck that can adapt to many different metas. We are not punished heavily by boardwipes/recover quickly from them.
You may find this has a similar feel to a Muldrotha, the gravetide deck.
3 Deck History
This started out as a zombie tribal list. It became apparent the list was too susceptible to boardwipes, and that a non-zombie centric list offered a lot more potential for creative design. Card advantage/control/late game became the theme. I realized that decent etb effects on a creature can become potential 4 for 1's after being resurrected. I also realized that the natural tendecy for this deck is to be mana hungry due to paying 4 mana for the God's activated ability. Ramp, land count, and low cost draw cards have been adjusted and are still being fine-tuned for consistency.
6 Card Options
You'll notice that many of my smaller creatures have some kind of evasion on them. This is so that when they come back as 4/4's they can really start getting damage through. I opted for a good number of low cmc creatures to avoid aggro decks running over us early on. Also many of them offer outright or pseudo card advantage. This means we aren't really losing a card when we dump out early creatures.
Siren Stormtamer- Sometimes we just really want to keep the Scarab God out for an extra turn. This helps protect the God there are already a few zombies on your side. Also stops the hate cards that flow our way.
looter il-kor
Baleful Strix
owl familiar
Dusk Legion Zealot
Champion of Wits
Grim Haruspex
Solemn Simulacrum
Mulldrifter- These are the cheap cantrip creatures. They help us dig for boardwipes early on while providing defense. Late game they refill our hand when resurrected, and often profide evasion.
Fleshbag marauder
Nekrataal
Hostage Taker
Ravenous Chupacabra
Shriekmaw
Noxious Gearhulk
Duplicant- Removal on a stick slot. We are fine playing these and boardwiping them away later. One of our brutal plays is: attack with everything to get in damage. Then boardwipe. On our next turn we replay the god for 5 from hand, then resurrect a removal on stick from the yard, sniping away the best creature that was played after the board wipe. The deck usually wins if it can set this up well.
Phantasmal Image
Stunt Double- These can often count as extra removal on stick spell. Otherwise, we wait until someone plays a giant and copy that. I will probably add in Clever Impersonator when I get a copy.
Sidisi, Undead vizier- Can be useful for sacrificing a creature we have on board to get another use out of it's etb trigger. Helps us search for a board wipe or bomb to close out the game. Zombie tribe bonus too.
Gravetitan- Is a wincon to be sure. Plop this out after a boardwipe or two when our opponents are low on cards. This is a great creature to search for.
Mikaues the unhallowed- Buffs all of our zombies and protects the Scarab god from being sniped from a removal spell.
Rite of replication-When copying a removal on a stick, this can become a one-sided wipe fairly often. Gravetitan is a good target too.
Army of the Damned- Hesitant to play such a high cmc card. On the other hand, the deck has a lot of ramp in it. Also the flashback means we get two shots at draining our opponents for 13, sometimes even 26.
Cards I seek to add:
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner- This card would be great as we are a creature based deck. Also has flying, very nice when resurrected.
Toxic Deluge
7 Strategy
This deck is about winning in the late game. The goal is to boardwipe some great creatures to the graveyard, then play out great creatures/keep making tokens via the God. This allows us to scry for answers and drain opponents life away while maintaining a mostly renewable board presence. Our opponents end up in a position where we have far more creatures than them, and they are on a timer via the God's life loss ability.
Early game: Play out ramp asap. If not ramp, creatures that allow us to draw or "draw" cards. If not creatures, the "other" artifacts like Lightning Greaves/Mindcrank. Do not be afriad to let the smaller cantrip-like creatures die early on if it will save you a good bit of life. We want targets for the scarab god to start filling up graveyards. It may be fine to play out a cantrip creature or other small creature knowing that you will boardwipe it away in a few turns. We really need those graveyard targets!
Mid Game: If you haven't ramped yet, draw cards to find a ramp spell or at least more lands. THE GOD IS DEMANDING! HE NEEDS MORE MANA AND DEAD CREATURES!
You'll probably hold off on playing the Scarab God unless you're setting up to make a bunch of zombies or you need a repeatable blocker because people are attacking you. You want to have at least 2-3 good targets in the yard before playing the god.
Once we have 6-8 mana we're really in a good place. 6 mana means you can play nearly all of the wipes in the deck. I usually hold off on my first wipe until there are at least 2 commanders/good targets on the board, preferably more. You're going to want to summon some tasty corpses to do your unholy bidding, or at least get rid of troublesome commanders for a while with your wipe.
8 mana means you can now activate the god's ability twice in one turn, a milestone to be aware of.
The deck mostly has three lines of play in the mid game:
Board wipe a battlefield that's getting clogged up with creatures. (You may not want to do this if one opponent is killing another. It can be nice to let some damage fly around if it's not aimed at you.)
Pivot to playing aggresive by playing out our best 5 and 6 drops (not the God yet) to start doing some damage/establishing board presence. Do this when your opponents are sluggish in their starts, there aren't many good creatures out and you feel like you can start attacking in with a decent amount of damage. Do not be afraid of trading away your creatures here so long as you have a board wipe/other creatures in hand or any graveyard. Unless many opponents are playing non-creature based decks, you will have plenty of ways to keep creatures on the board most games.
The mid-game offers a lot of flexible playstyles for the scarab god which is why I like it. You need to learn to read the board/hands/opponents/opposing commanders to maximize your play style for this deck, especially mid game. It's part of why the deck is so fun. You have many different styles of play depending on the board state et. (This deck=adaptive and resilient.)
In general, try to play out whatever you don't need to save because we want to keep drawing cards/save some specific cards in hand for a while sometime. We also have a lot of turns where we only use the god's ability instead of playing them out of hand. They can pile up above our max hand size sometimes.
Late game:
Another pivotal mana moment is when you have 9 mana available. We can often wait to cast the scarab god this late in the game. If so, we have the potential to cast the god, then use it's ability right before our turn begins. Then, use the ability twice more at the begining of our upkeep to create an army quickly. It's not as though we are waiting to play the god until we have 9 mana available in every game. However, this move can be devastating and can be the clear turn of the tide in our favor.
In general, it's probably time to start amassing an army assuming we've already board wiped at least once. We are trying to generate great card advantage through our wipes/repeatable removal on a stick creatures/scrying with the scarab god.
If opponents are low on cards/you have an advantage, it may be time to play a potential wincon like Army of the Damned, Rites of Replication, Garruk's Wake.
You may need to protect the scarab god or your board by using a counterspell now.
Usually we win by just getting rid of our opponents' creatures/hands and having more resources to develope our board after a boardwipe or outlast 'em while draining/scrying with the god.
9 Changelog
Josu Vess, Lich Knight- The curve was too high in my deck, had to go. Playable if you don't have Army of the damned or don't mind your curve being a bit higher.
Dakra Mystic
Phyrexian Arena
Arcane Adaptation- we don't have enough creatures to make this relevant.
Ambition's Cost
Grimgrin corpse-borne
Noxious Gearhulk
Plague Wind- Reiver Demon is better.
Merciless Executioner
Dread Summons
Whispering Madness- In my meta, I tend to have more cards in hand than my opponents. For this reason, I opted out of this card. It's a good card if your opponents tend to have 4-7+ cards in hand in the mid to late game.
Ancient Excavation- This card is a straight trap. Better off playing Sift or other draw cards for 4 cost. In this deck, you will be saving cards in your hand for a while. You won't want to discard them.
Altar of Dementia- Opted for altar of the brood/mincrank instead. This is a worthy substitute if you don't have the others. It may be better than them depending on how you build the deck.
The old Zombie Tribe list (feel free to ask about this one too.)
I've been focusing on removal on a stick via Ravenous Chupacabra, Duplicant, Grimgrin Corpse-born, and Hostage Taker. I like this approach because we get two removals out of them with The Scarab God, making these cards 4 for 1s over the course of being reanimated. Also, I'd rather have the few counterspells I run than the cards you mentioned. A well timed counterspell that negates a boardwipe or keeps the god from going back to our hand will help us win more often than Grisly Spectacle and Winds of rebuke.
Since this deck has a decent amount of creatures and card draw, I find I don't need much mill to always have good choices for the scarab god. Creatures will naturally die throughout the game, especially with our removal on sticks, so there will almost always be a creature or two for the god to target.
I kicked some ass last night with basically the list above, no counterspell or walking dead due to lack of time before playing. One notable card that was put in and I'll make room for is Gisa and Geralf. This naughty couple did it's part in winning me the game. Played them out early turn 4 and milled undead Executioner into the graveyard. When I recast them with The Scarab God, they nabbed 3 more creatures!
My winning turn, I had sacrificed the god the turn before to put a suspension counter on a Curse of Cabal an opponent had played. I had also played Army of the Damned the turn before. I already had out Undead Warchief and some three cost zombie lord. Since Gisa and Geralf were out (in token form) I was able to cast a zombie lord from my graveyard, plus play another from my hand. The zombies were getting buffed for something like +5/+4 each. I swung in for 43 damage on one opponent and 36 damage at another, killing off both. That left me with only one opponent who died on my next turn.
It was a thorough, and rather early win considering how the game had been progressing up until that point. If our opponents don't boardwipe, we practically can't lose as we clog the board with creatures while getting in continuous damage and scrying for cards we need, all the while preparing for a big swing.
I'm thinking of removing Endless Ranks of the dead. It feels a bit like a win more card. The requirements of having many zombies out for multiple turns makes this cards too slow.
Also, I realized my removal on a stick creature count is actually at 5.
I really like where you're going with this! I feel I'm now at a crossroad. Do I keep zombie tribal theme or do I explore the Blue/Black value creature theme? I can see that this deck can really become a control, but creature based deck. I'm already liking having a few counterspells in the deck, and there are so many destroy creature etb effects, and creatures that can copy them. Plus, Muddle the Mixture into Cylconic Rift is real. Very hard for our opponents to come back from when we have a few creatures out.
I'll post a new control style list alongside the zombie list. Also, I can see those copy cards still being good in the zombie tribal list as well.
Sticking with the zombie tribal theme for now. I only have about one opportunity a week to test the deck out, so I'll stick with the original idea for now.
I added in
The deck needed to tune the curve and resource management a bit. Previously I'd added some great highcost spells that can win us the game. As such, the curve was a bit high on the top end. Also mana was becoming a problem. I want to keep the curve as low as possible so that I can make use of the god's ability.
Relentless Dead, Bad moon, sign in blood all help lower the curve. I want to be doing things in the early turns so that I can continue to draw cards without having to discard. I was finding too many hands in online goldfish testing that left me with too many high cost spells. I think relentless dead is a bit better than you imagine at first glance. I can curve out with him, then a lord and swing in for 3 turn one, and keep swinging for quite a while. Also, menace, plus all the other abilities are still relevant for him if exiled with the god. It's potential card advantage on a creature.
It seems one of the best routes for the deck is to play out a couple of early zombies and curve into The Scarab God. We want to start scrying the turn after he's played hopefully. It's hard to comprehend how much card advantage the god provides. You almost forget about the fact that you can start scrying nearly every turn with him. I've had multiple games where I start draining people for a ton of life while scrying 4-10+ per turn. If you're draining and scrying while the opponents are at a low creature and/or card state, it's about game over for them.
Keep in mind I've been playing mostly 3-4 player with the occasional 5 player game. Also, my meta just doesn't seem to understand that they need more boardwipes/creature removal in general, and there's almost no graveyard hate at all. Don't think this deck is getting by only my meta's weaknesses however. I think it is quickly becoming one of my most powerful out of the 10 edh decks I have.
These both have some amazing potential for this deck. I like that Josu is already a fair cost on it's own, a 4/5 zombie menace for 4. That looks great alongside a lord and bonkers for 9 mana. Giving zombies menace is huge because we have so many of them, it just helps them stay alive for another swing through people's defenses. It basically looks like a second copy of Army of the Damned, but with added flexibility!
I'm considering changing the deck to "keyword creature abilities" as the focus instead of zombie tribal.
There are a bunch of cheap flying deathtouch creatures out there. I've been wanting to lower my curve to have more relevant 2 and 3 drops.
I think cards like this, and those with lifelink could be really good for the deck. We want to go shields up because people will want to attack us. I think a never ending supply of deathtouch creatures and flyers will allow us to stay defensive until we can cast a winning spell.
I've been reconsidering the advantages of the scarab god as a commander. I'm going to try a more controlling/attrition approach. The deck has a natural card advantage built into the scarab god. We can often replay him for 5 after a boardwipe/blocking with him, plus start using the dead creatures in the graveyards.
I've subtracted many of the zombie buff creatures, along with 2-3 token producers. Card draw seemed better as I have so many creatures/kill spells/boardwipes.
The deck now has a couple more low cmc creatures that cantrip us somewhat.
These creatures look great because of their low cmc, cantrip-like abilities, and their extra advantage when resurrected by the scarab god. The deck wanted a few more relevant early drops that would come back and provide some good value as tokens also. We just want to start playing cards, especially creatures early. This gives us ample opportunity to block/conserve life, while digging through our deck and setting up our graveyard for later.
In addition to the cantrip creatures, I've added some more low cost creatures with nasty abilities.
The deck has quite a fair amount of deathtouch and flying creatures at this point. These seemed like the best abilities to load up on. Deathtouch keeps us from being attacked. Flying ensures we get through late game. Also the "each player sacrifices a creature" effect of fleshbag/executioner were too good to pass up. It's fine to just use play them and sac. themselves to their own ability. Then we play the god, hopefully turn 4, and resurrect them after that. I think this can help shut down some aggro decks. The card advantage looks too good to pass up as well. With 3 opponents, we can potentially get 6 for 1 out of the card after it returns. I'm considering adding slum reaper.
The deck is mana hungry. Leaning into that, I've added another ramp spell. Card draw will also help with land drops. 39 lands help as well.
Adding some more boardwipes should help the deck along.
I've opted for higher cost, more one sided boardwipes. This is a road to victory as I've experienced with this deck before.
Plenty of targeted removal via creatures help us snipe crucial creatures until we draw a board wipe, or start to pull ahead through card advantage. As a plus, they'll keep removing creatures if they die off. It makes us harder to attack because people don't want these removal creatures to die blocking only to be reused next turn.
Adding even more boardwipes could work out. I'll start collecting the cards for it.
I think this deck has a lot more potential than the zombie list. Thoughts anyone?
This latest post is exactly the kind of approach I used with the Scarab God. Couple other things I would recommend trying out:
- Stunt Double: Clone with flash...what's not to like?
- Venser, Shaper Savant: Just a solid, versatile ETB body.
- Clever Impersonator: Another versatile clone.
- Phyrexian Delver: Two bodies for the price of one, and that other body will probably be another value creature...
- Riftwing Cloudskate: More versatile removal.
EDIT: Might as well throw in a couple cuts, since that's always the hardest part.
- Glen Elendra Liege: Does it really matter if your creatures are just a little bigger?
- Champion of Wits: Meh, I'd rather have a Phyrexian Arena or a Phyrexian Rager or the new Twilight Prophet or any number of other blue/black draw spells.
- Bone Picker, Tidehollow Strix, other vanilla creatures with deathtouch: Meh, they don't add an immediate value or impact the board that much. I'd rather play all of the Nekrataal-type guys instead.
Please post your own decklist here if you have one! I'd love to see more lists and get a healthy The Scarab God discussion going. The other threads I've been trying don't have much life/decklists in them.
I retuned my list. It went further into a control/attrition based deck since I was able to order some cards for it and learned a few tricks from this thread.
The idea is to continuosly kill all of our opponent's creatures. This is a deck that aims to win in the late game. We do so with multiple boardwipes (more to be considered) and plenty of creatures with etb destroy creature effects. All the while the deck continously draws cards, plays out cheap creatures, and scries with the Scarab god. Not too mention, we can continously generate card advantage by making tokens of our low cost creatures.
The god works especially well with boardwipes because we can replay our commander for it's initial cost while others must pay that additional tax. That's also the reason we have so many destroy creature etbs. We just plan to continously snipe our opponents' commanders or best creatures in between boardwipes. These strategies work well together. Step one:boardwipe Step two: play out a destroy creature on a stick or resurrect one from the yard to keep an opponent down. Mix and repeat.
Cards worth mentioning: Champion of Wits does a great job. Note that we get to draw 4 and discard 2 if we make this a token. Rite of Replication This is also most of a one sided boardwipe if we have a creature out with a destroy creature etb. Also good when making copies of a creature with draw card etb effects. Skull clamp We have creatures everywhere in this deck. Also potential abuse with our own destroy creature abilities. Cyclonic Rift and Muddle the Mixture One searches for the other. I have definitely won games through cyclonic rift. Lightning Greaves to protect commander, but also give haste to tokens. Rush of Knowledge This is in almost all of my blue decks. Nearly always overperforms. Mikaeus the unhallowed Incredible in this etb based deck. Also a zombie. Gravetitan Extra zombies, even if resurrected. Duskmantle seer considering we are going for an attrition deck, and the scarab god helps drain opponents' life totals, I think this should help more than hurt. It's also a 4/4 flyer for 4 mana, so it checks out. Looter il-kor keeps up the evasion theme whie also looting. Great effect in a deck that wants to stuff its graveyard.
I really like the idea of stuffing our own deck full of good cheap creatures that are even better when resurrected with the god. This deck continuously plays spells or at least activates the god's ability all game long.
Lots of card draw is great in this deck. A decent number of cheap value creatures help with the game plan. It's something to discourage aggro while adding card advantage. Having a couple of evasive/deathtouch/card draw creatures that hit the yard early helps with any mid/late game slump. Don't underestimate evasion on our creatures in this deck. It's how we seal the deal late game.
All of the above leads to the god's inevitability of us winning.
Also worth noting is that this deck has a high curve. I've found this to be desirable. Any commander with a good activated ability is going to want access to more mana. The deck capitalizes on this by having a plethora of cheaper spells, plenty of ramp, and managing a slightly higher curve. We'll either be blasting away creatures with wipes or summoning creature tokens.
I built a value variant of this deck when it came out. It is extremely stable as a deck and I believe it to be much more ideal than the zombie version as the impact of collateral damage off of a boardwipe is very minimal compared to go-wide zombie versions.
My list is not posted on here because I told my group that I'm NOT supposed to optimize this one.
I'll throw out a couple more valuable gems:
- Training Grounds: Cuts your activation cost in half. I had it in the first game I played with Scarab, and it's like a cheat code. EDIT: Heartstone should probably also go in here (thanks MTGMuddstah!)
- Oracle of Dust: A little-known card, but it draws, fills up your yard, AND re-buys the best of your opponents' (opponent's?) guys. The best part is that you can do it over and over again until you run out of mana.
- Tragic Slip: For one mana, you can (usually) put an indestructible guy of (almost) any size into the yard.
- Disciple of Bolas: If your average creature is a 4/4 token, you can do worse than off it for 4 life and four cards.
And as always, a couple cuts to go with them:
- Duskmantle Seer: Unless you're going for a group hug theme, it doesn't pay to give things away. Also, the high curve makes this less good.
- Duplicant, Curse of the Swine: If your goal is to put stuff in the graveyard, exile effects are counter-productive.
- Concentrate: There are other creatures (like the Disciple above) that do this with more synergy, or at instant speed.
Thanks for the replies y'all! Considering that Xenagos deck you have Penguin, I'm not surprised your play group asks for something a bit more gentle. LOL.
OCPunisher you may be right about Duskmantle seer. I thought it would be cool to have a another card that would drain opponents. I could probably find a better slot for this. You should post your decklist and explain it's theory here. The god has so many different strategies going for it.
Curse of the swine is one of the best blue cards around. This thing can take care of a field of eldrazi like a boss. Perhaps slightly anti-synergy, but the pay off is too good. We just want more onesided boardwipes for my build. After all, our creatures are easily outclassed in the beginning.
Also funny you don't care for champion of wits. He digs 4 cards deep when reanimated, and helps out immensely early on to fix your hand. I just want to reach those answers and have that early creature that hits the yard. I do run more creatures than you though, which helps add value to him. If your hand's total cmc is too high in the beginning, you can dump a more expensive creature and get value out of it soon after that.
Tragic slip does look appealing. I did go down to 2 counterspells recently though. I might rather have a 3rd one of those than this.
Duplicant can exile a creature, or even 2. This just seems too relevant with the indestructible badasses running around in my meta.
I may just steal Wurmcoil engine from my artifact deck for this build.
The goal of this version is to attrition our opponents out of resources through wipes and removal, all the while amassing more for ourselves. Curse of the swine is basically a board wipe only better. I built the deck to have a good amount of consistency in it. The things that help with consistency are having plenty of small creatures and cheap draw spells. We want to be maximizing mana through land plays/draw and ramp. All the while, playing cards out of our hand. This deck has so much card advantage, we need cheap spells to dump early in order to keep drawing cards. This deck rarely ever goes below 4 or 5 cards in hand. I think this strategy of playing out a couple of cheap early creatures to stave off early attacks, while setting up for a boardwipe or other nasty control later works quite nicely. (I have a few recent tests. 2 wins and 2 losses last week. Not bad for 3 and 4 player games.)
I see the god like this: If we can maintain parity with our opponents throughout most of the game, we are actually getting ahead of them through scry triggers and life loss. As long as we keep killing off commanders and boardwiping, we will win in the end. The strategy has been working so far. I also like the idea of using more boardwipe/destroy creature effects to fill the 'yards instead of more straight mill. The boardwipes serve 2 purposes while mill only serves one. I did take Altar of the brood and Mindcrank as a nod to ocpunisher. These are cheap cards that we can play out early and add value all game long.
No problem, I probably haven’t played enough with the Champion to get an accurate evaluation.
I’ll post my list later, but I still don’t like the exile effects. Even Eldrazi or Theros gods can be answered by bounce, edicts, or stealing. Luckily these colors have a plethora of all these types of effects.
I have played a few games with the newer control based version of the deck. All of the counterspells have been amazing. They have definitely helped me win games. I'm considering going up to 4.
In general, the deck can execute it's plan keeping our opponents' creatures down while we continue to develop our board. The destroy creature effects on a creature are crazy good for killing people's commanders. With the right draw, we can basically keep everyone else's commanders off the board while we go to town. I like playing a lot of boardwipes, as we don't really mind them. Just replay the god for the same cost, then start resurrecting stuff out of the graveyard.
I like that the deck is a big mana deck now. Gilded Lotus is definitely a good include for the deck. Josu vess, lich knight and Final Parting are both auto includes. Lich knight has definitely won me games.
Rites of replication is stupid powerful in this deck. I did get to make my stupid play of copying Noxious gearhulk (or any other destroy creature on a stick) kicked. I went from being behind in life and board position, to having only my creatures, plus 6 gearhulks on the board and a bunch of life.
The deck has been winning more games than it looses! I love it. I'll post a more refined control list sometime and talk about the nuances.
I love playing the scarab god. Anyone else have something to share about him?
I won another game last night. I had resolved Army of the Damned on my previous turn and had the Scarab God out. At the beginning of my upkeep I made a token of Diregraf Captain which was in my yard. Then I did the same with phantasmal image, having it copy diregraf captain.
I made all opponents lose 15 with the upkeep trigger. Then I boardwiped, getting 2 lifeloss per zombie on the field, netting me another 30 damage to dish out. It was a great win!
The deck has been tuned. I took out some card draw which was a bit redundant.
New additions to the deck:
Dakra mystic was a blast to play. Cutting our opponents off their best creatures while we get to play them later is too much fun.
Siren stormtamer protects us from inevitable hate this deck draws. We could also use more early drop creatures.
Arcane Adaptation is good enough even if you only have the scarab god out. I like this better than a traditional token producing card because this is likely to stay on the board throughout the whole game, where as making token zombies can just get boardwiped away.
Liliana is better than I first thought. Being able to reuse a destroy creature ability multiple times is great. Note that she doesn't exile the creature, it will just go back to the graveyard once it dies. This planeswalker tends to stick around due to the nature of our deck. Our opponents just much less likely to have profitable attacks due to all of our removal. I'm considering adding in Liliana of the Veil to the deck too.
Sometimes I feel like my deck could use more threats to close out the game. That could just be my unfamiliarity with playing control in commander however. There can be some hair-raising moments when it seems like I'm falling behind. I always seem to find a game winning card before it's too late though. Also, we can have little to do in the early game a lot of the time. Not sure if I should try to lower the curve or keep playing as is, since the deck is on a winning streak.
The list is really coming together. This is quickly becoming my favorite deck to play.
This deck is so awesome I'm making a primer for it. It keeps winning games and I keep finding little tweaks here and there to up the power level. I finally found the best home for my Vedalken Orrery. This allows us to hold back our removal on a stick or boardwipe until the most opportune time. Also allows us more flexibility in using the god's ability.
I decided to go ahead and post the incomplete primer (on the first post.) Excuse the poor formatting, lack of completeness et. An incomplete primer is better than nothing. I'll keep updating it at least once a week.
I actually think you may want to find space for more counterspells. Not too many more, but enough so that you can have one for something that will destroy you if it happens. Unwind is an unconventional choice with extra synergy here.
Also we do need at least one colorless boardwipe because some artifacts and enchantments will ruin our day. My meta is a "Bane of Progress" meta where artifacts get out of hand so fast and enchantments also are generally very dangerous. Scarab is still actually good in these metas, but you basically need to accept that you can't actually stop their manarocks without relying on other decks to give you the tools.
I also don't notice much graveyard hate. Yes, this deck does take stuff off of other people's graveyards, but sometimes it is needed, particularly with noncreature abuse. Nihil Spellbomb is the option that requires the least commitment, while the choice that is a dedicated hate card but with the most synergy here is Agent of Erebos. It all depends on if you need it though. I play a metric ton of graveyard strategies, so I always expect it and also pack it.
If you play a ton of wipes, Revel in Riches can get a ton of mana and require an answer from opponents. My build is unoptimized by my standards and is always getting stuff added to it and taken out.
Spellseeker is nuts. I plan on retooling the deck so that it can get at least one of every type of answer I need.
Thanks for popping in again penguin. I was going to ask your opinion again when the "primer" outline was done, glad you showed up earlier!
I updated the list again pretty significantly. I added bojuka bog instead of nihil spellbomb. I took out Temple of the False God for it. I don't have too many tapped lands, and temple can kind of screw me over sometimes. There's only one player in my meta who really makes us of their 'yard. That's why there's been a lack so far.
I had been feeling the need for one more counterspell too. I had put in negate, but unwind does seem better. I like that we can counter something and still use the god's ability after that.
I like the Revel in Riches suggestion. I was looking for a card that could win me the game without having to attack in. It had to be useful in other ways though too. This is perfect. I will have to make a cut for it.
I know you're intentionally using an non-optimized list. I'm going to make proxies of the lands I need and make two decks for this bad boy. I love playing zombie tribal, but it's less than ideal. I'm keeping this list as my best/optimized, then recreate my zombie tribal as my for fun/not so competitive list. If you have an itch to build a new deck, you could build the scarab god with a new theme, make it more competitive, and keep your just for fun deck around too.
I updated the list quite a bit. Added in more powerful and cheaper cards. Strategy section has most of it there now. Changelog added. More updates to come. Anyone else have a list they can post?
That card is absolutely kill-on-sight. I also still think you need at least one out to enchantments. At least you have Hostage Taker for artifacts. You got time to get these, I suppose.
I tend to win off of a rite of rep copying Gray Merchant a decent amount of the time. I'm trying to figure out what else is optimal, but even cards like Army of the Damned aren't guaranteed given that I don't expect my stuff to live.
Not expecting my cards to survive is a big motivator for the way I build decks.
I'm guessing all of the Gray merchants see each other entering the battlefield? What does that come out to in life loss if you only have merchant out? 60 instant life loss when you include the mana cost of the original merchant? If so that does seem like fun. I took out merchant because I have so many boardwipes/blue creatures it didn't seem worth it. This combo does seem more worth it, especially since I'm adding entomb back into the deck and adding Vampiric tutor as well.
How do get rid of enchantments playing U/B besides bouncing a permanent? Or is that what you're talking about using? Otherwise, it'd probably be an overcosted artifact for that effect, which I wouldn't want. Please give suggestions if you already have some lined up, because I'm tapped out here.
I just don't see how jamming in an extra artifact/enchantment destruction or two is that big a deal in edh if you're not in the right colors for it. If you only have 2-3 artifact/enchantment removal spells in the game, you don't stand a very good chance of drawing them in time anyway.
Dropping money on DamnationspellseekerMystical tutor and a bit more on this card order. Training grounds will be another time, but it will happen I'm sure.
Cards are on order for the deck, looking forward to playing it again! Bagged another win last weekend in 5 way free-for-all.
1 Introduction
I'm updating this thread to follow the Primer outline. Please excuse the incompleteness/bad formatting. I'm working on getting the most important content up to par first. Check out the newly updated 7 Strategy and 9 Changelog sections. More to come in the following weeks.
Welcome to The Scarab God thread, where the killing and resurrecting keep rolling.
2 Why play this Commander?
The Scarab God offers amazing flexibility in building different kinds of decks. Possible themes are Zombie Tribal, Mill/resurrection strategy, value creatures, and control. If you've ever wanted to build 2 decks for one commander, this is a good choice.
My list is about value creatures/control. It has amazing lategame power and crazy amounts of card advantage. We control what creatures remain on the board through many boardwipes and destroy creature effects. If you want to continuously kill off your opponents commanders while always having yours out, jump on board!
The cons of this deck seem to be few and far between, though more testing is needed. Graveyard hate can hurt us for a while. We can't destroy artifacts/enchantments, so our creatures can get shut out from attacking. Extremely aggro decks might take us down before we can stabilize if we don't draw a boardwipe in time. The slower, more controlling style of gameplay means this deck can get beat out by fast combo decks and the utmost optimized lists. However, you can add more counter spells/instant removal to adjust for this.
The pros are numerous. First of all, the God's return to hand ability ensures that we normally only have to pay 5 to play our commander the entire game. This is, combined with the resurrection ability allows us to run numerous boardwipes. The deck always has something to spend mana on. This is a versatile deck that can adapt to many different metas. We are not punished heavily by boardwipes/recover quickly from them.
You may find this has a similar feel to a Muldrotha, the gravetide deck.
3 Deck History
This started out as a zombie tribal list. It became apparent the list was too susceptible to boardwipes, and that a non-zombie centric list offered a lot more potential for creative design. Card advantage/control/late game became the theme. I realized that decent etb effects on a creature can become potential 4 for 1's after being resurrected. I also realized that the natural tendecy for this deck is to be mana hungry due to paying 4 mana for the God's activated ability. Ramp, land count, and low cost draw cards have been adjusted and are still being fine-tuned for consistency.
5 Deck List
1 Siren Stormtamer
1 Phantasmal Image
1 looter il-kor
1 Merfolk looter
1 Baleful Strix
1 dusk legion zealot
1 owl familiar
1 Thought courier
1 Fleshbag marauder
1 Trinket Mage
1 Champion of Wits
1 Spellseeker
1 Stunt Double
1 Nekrataal
1 Hostage Taker
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
1 Mulldrifter
1 Wurmcoil engine
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Demonlord Belzenlok
1 Grave Titan
1 Extractor Demon
Card Draw/tutor 11 (16)
1 Skullclamp
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Entomb
1 Vampiric tutor
1 Night's Whisper
1 Read the bones
1 Compulsive Research
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Concentrate
1 Final Parting
1 Rush of Knowledge
1 Sol Ring
1 Thought Vessel
1 Fellwar Stone
1 mind stone
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Dimir Signet
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Hedron Archive
1 Thran Dynamo
Boardwipes 7
1 Curse of the swine
1 cyclonic rift
1 Damnation
1 Crux of Fate
1 Life's Finale
1 Reiver Demon
1 In Garruk's Wake
Other 11
1 Altar of the Brood
1 Mindcrank
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Swiftfoot boots
1 Counterspell
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Unwind
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Revel in Riches
1 Rite of replication
1 Army of the Damned
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Sunken Hollow
1 command tower
1 watery grave
1 choked estuary
1 drowned catacomb
1 temple of deceit
1 Dimir guildgate
1 jwar isle Refuge
1 submerged boneyard
1 fetid pools
1 dismal backwater
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Bojuka bog
11 swamp
10 island
6 Card Options
You'll notice that many of my smaller creatures have some kind of evasion on them. This is so that when they come back as 4/4's they can really start getting damage through. I opted for a good number of low cmc creatures to avoid aggro decks running over us early on. Also many of them offer outright or pseudo card advantage. This means we aren't really losing a card when we dump out early creatures.
Siren Stormtamer- Sometimes we just really want to keep the Scarab God out for an extra turn. This helps protect the God there are already a few zombies on your side. Also stops the hate cards that flow our way.
looter il-kor
Baleful Strix
owl familiar
Dusk Legion Zealot
Champion of Wits
Grim Haruspex
Solemn Simulacrum
Mulldrifter- These are the cheap cantrip creatures. They help us dig for boardwipes early on while providing defense. Late game they refill our hand when resurrected, and often profide evasion.
Fleshbag marauder
Nekrataal
Hostage Taker
Ravenous Chupacabra
Shriekmaw
Noxious Gearhulk
Duplicant- Removal on a stick slot. We are fine playing these and boardwiping them away later. One of our brutal plays is: attack with everything to get in damage. Then boardwipe. On our next turn we replay the god for 5 from hand, then resurrect a removal on stick from the yard, sniping away the best creature that was played after the board wipe. The deck usually wins if it can set this up well.
Phantasmal Image
Stunt Double- These can often count as extra removal on stick spell. Otherwise, we wait until someone plays a giant and copy that. I will probably add in Clever Impersonator when I get a copy.
Sidisi, Undead vizier- Can be useful for sacrificing a creature we have on board to get another use out of it's etb trigger. Helps us search for a board wipe or bomb to close out the game. Zombie tribe bonus too.
Gravetitan- Is a wincon to be sure. Plop this out after a boardwipe or two when our opponents are low on cards. This is a great creature to search for.
Mikaues the unhallowed- Buffs all of our zombies and protects the Scarab god from being sniped from a removal spell.
Rite of replication-When copying a removal on a stick, this can become a one-sided wipe fairly often. Gravetitan is a good target too.
Army of the Damned- Hesitant to play such a high cmc card. On the other hand, the deck has a lot of ramp in it. Also the flashback means we get two shots at draining our opponents for 13, sometimes even 26.
Cards I seek to add:
Kira, Great Glass-Spinner- This card would be great as we are a creature based deck. Also has flying, very nice when resurrected.
Toxic Deluge
7 Strategy
This deck is about winning in the late game. The goal is to boardwipe some great creatures to the graveyard, then play out great creatures/keep making tokens via the God. This allows us to scry for answers and drain opponents life away while maintaining a mostly renewable board presence. Our opponents end up in a position where we have far more creatures than them, and they are on a timer via the God's life loss ability.
Early game: Play out ramp asap. If not ramp, creatures that allow us to draw or "draw" cards. If not creatures, the "other" artifacts like Lightning Greaves/Mindcrank. Do not be afriad to let the smaller cantrip-like creatures die early on if it will save you a good bit of life. We want targets for the scarab god to start filling up graveyards. It may be fine to play out a cantrip creature or other small creature knowing that you will boardwipe it away in a few turns. We really need those graveyard targets!
Mid Game: If you haven't ramped yet, draw cards to find a ramp spell or at least more lands. THE GOD IS DEMANDING! HE NEEDS MORE MANA AND DEAD CREATURES!
You'll probably hold off on playing the Scarab God unless you're setting up to make a bunch of zombies or you need a repeatable blocker because people are attacking you. You want to have at least 2-3 good targets in the yard before playing the god.
Once we have 6-8 mana we're really in a good place. 6 mana means you can play nearly all of the wipes in the deck. I usually hold off on my first wipe until there are at least 2 commanders/good targets on the board, preferably more. You're going to want to summon some tasty corpses to do your unholy bidding, or at least get rid of troublesome commanders for a while with your wipe.
8 mana means you can now activate the god's ability twice in one turn, a milestone to be aware of.
The deck mostly has three lines of play in the mid game:
Board wipe a battlefield that's getting clogged up with creatures. (You may not want to do this if one opponent is killing another. It can be nice to let some damage fly around if it's not aimed at you.)
Pivot to playing aggresive by playing out our best 5 and 6 drops (not the God yet) to start doing some damage/establishing board presence. Do this when your opponents are sluggish in their starts, there aren't many good creatures out and you feel like you can start attacking in with a decent amount of damage. Do not be afraid of trading away your creatures here so long as you have a board wipe/other creatures in hand or any graveyard. Unless many opponents are playing non-creature based decks, you will have plenty of ways to keep creatures on the board most games.
The mid-game offers a lot of flexible playstyles for the scarab god which is why I like it. You need to learn to read the board/hands/opponents/opposing commanders to maximize your play style for this deck, especially mid game. It's part of why the deck is so fun. You have many different styles of play depending on the board state et. (This deck=adaptive and resilient.)
In general, try to play out whatever you don't need to save because we want to keep drawing cards/save some specific cards in hand for a while sometime. We also have a lot of turns where we only use the god's ability instead of playing them out of hand. They can pile up above our max hand size sometimes.
Late game:
Another pivotal mana moment is when you have 9 mana available. We can often wait to cast the scarab god this late in the game. If so, we have the potential to cast the god, then use it's ability right before our turn begins. Then, use the ability twice more at the begining of our upkeep to create an army quickly. It's not as though we are waiting to play the god until we have 9 mana available in every game. However, this move can be devastating and can be the clear turn of the tide in our favor.
In general, it's probably time to start amassing an army assuming we've already board wiped at least once. We are trying to generate great card advantage through our wipes/repeatable removal on a stick creatures/scrying with the scarab god.
If opponents are low on cards/you have an advantage, it may be time to play a potential wincon like Army of the Damned, Rites of Replication, Garruk's Wake.
You may need to protect the scarab god or your board by using a counterspell now.
Usually we win by just getting rid of our opponents' creatures/hands and having more resources to develope our board after a boardwipe or outlast 'em while draining/scrying with the god.
9 Changelog
Josu Vess, Lich Knight- The curve was too high in my deck, had to go. Playable if you don't have Army of the damned or don't mind your curve being a bit higher.
Dakra Mystic
Phyrexian Arena
Arcane Adaptation- we don't have enough creatures to make this relevant.
Ambition's Cost
Grimgrin corpse-borne
Noxious Gearhulk
Plague Wind- Reiver Demon is better.
Merciless Executioner
Dread Summons
Whispering Madness- In my meta, I tend to have more cards in hand than my opponents. For this reason, I opted out of this card. It's a good card if your opponents tend to have 4-7+ cards in hand in the mid to late game.
Ancient Excavation- This card is a straight trap. Better off playing Sift or other draw cards for 4 cost. In this deck, you will be saving cards in your hand for a while. You won't want to discard them.
Altar of Dementia- Opted for altar of the brood/mincrank instead. This is a worthy substitute if you don't have the others. It may be better than them depending on how you build the deck.
The old Zombie Tribe list (feel free to ask about this one too.)
1 Walking dead
1 Metathran zombie
1 Baleful Strix
1 Diregraf Captain
1 Lord of the Undead
1 Lord of the accursed
1 Cemetery Reaper
1 Adaptive automaton
1 Zombie Master
1 Lich lord of unx
1 Champion of Wits
1 Undead Warchief
1 Risen executioner
1 Liliana's Reaver
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Vindictive Lich
1 Hostage Taker
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
1 Mulldrifter
1 Vengeful Pharaoh
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Duplicant
1 Grave Titan
1 Overseer of the Damned
1 Dread Summons
1 Dark Salvation
1 Curse of Disturbance
1 Endless Ranks of the dead
1 Rite of replication
1 Liliana's Mastery
1 Army of the Damned
Card Draw/tutor 9 (13)
1 Skullclamp
1 Night's Whisper
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Read the bones
1 Ancient Excavation
1 Mastermind's Acquisition
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Concentrate
1 Ambition's Cost
Ramp 8 (11)
1 Sol Ring
1 Dimir Signet
1 Fellwar Stone
1 mind stone
1 Commander's Sphere
1 Darksteel ingot
1 Hedron Archive
1 Thran Dynamo
Other 9
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Counterspell
1 Swan Song
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 cyclonic rift
1 vona's hunger
1 Heirloom blade
1 dictate of erebos
1 Plague Wind
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Field of Ruin
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Sunken Hollow
1 command tower
1 watery grave
1 choked estuary
1 drowned catacomb
1 dimir aqueduct
1 temple of deceit
1 Dimir guildgate
1 jwar isle Refuge
1 submerged boneyard
1 fetid pools
1 dismal backwater
13 swamp
9 island
Since this deck has a decent amount of creatures and card draw, I find I don't need much mill to always have good choices for the scarab god. Creatures will naturally die throughout the game, especially with our removal on sticks, so there will almost always be a creature or two for the god to target.
I kicked some ass last night with basically the list above, no counterspell or walking dead due to lack of time before playing. One notable card that was put in and I'll make room for is Gisa and Geralf. This naughty couple did it's part in winning me the game. Played them out early turn 4 and milled undead Executioner into the graveyard. When I recast them with The Scarab God, they nabbed 3 more creatures!
My winning turn, I had sacrificed the god the turn before to put a suspension counter on a Curse of Cabal an opponent had played. I had also played Army of the Damned the turn before. I already had out Undead Warchief and some three cost zombie lord. Since Gisa and Geralf were out (in token form) I was able to cast a zombie lord from my graveyard, plus play another from my hand. The zombies were getting buffed for something like +5/+4 each. I swung in for 43 damage on one opponent and 36 damage at another, killing off both. That left me with only one opponent who died on my next turn.
It was a thorough, and rather early win considering how the game had been progressing up until that point. If our opponents don't boardwipe, we practically can't lose as we clog the board with creatures while getting in continuous damage and scrying for cards we need, all the while preparing for a big swing.
Also, I realized my removal on a stick creature count is actually at 5.
There's the possibility of adding in Shriekmaw, big game hunter, Evil Twin, Gilt-leaf winnower, Nekrataal, noxious gearhulk, Deathbringer Regent maybe royal assassin. The deck could do a creature control theme in a very brutal way.
I'll post a new control style list alongside the zombie list. Also, I can see those copy cards still being good in the zombie tribal list as well.
1 Walking dead
1 Metathran zombie
1 Relentless Dead
1 Baleful Strix
1 Diregraf Captain
1 Lord of the Undead
1 Lord of the accursed
1 Cemetery Reaper
1 Adaptive automaton
1 Zombie Master
1 Lich lord of unx
1 Champion of Wits
1 Undead Warchief
1 Risen executioner
1 Gisa and Geralf
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Vindictive Lich
1 Hostage Taker
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
1 Mulldrifter
1 Gray Merchant of Asphodel
1 Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Duplicant
1 Grave Titan
Token Producers 6 (10)
1 Dread Summons
1 Curse of Disturbance
1 Rite of replication
1 Liliana's Mastery
1 Liliana, Death's Majesty
1 Army of the Damned
1 Skullclamp
1 Night's Whisper
1 Sign in Blood
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Read the bones
1 Ancient Excavation
1 Mastermind's Acquisition
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Concentrate
1 Ambition's Cost
Ramp 8 (11)
1 Sol Ring
1 Dimir Signet
1 Fellwar Stone
1 mind stone
1 Commander's Sphere
1 Darksteel ingot
1 Hedron Archive
1 Thran Dynamo
Other 11
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Bad moon
1 Counterspell
1 Swan Song
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 cyclonic rift
1 vona's hunger
1 Heirloom blade
1 dictate of erebos
1 Plague Wind
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Temple of the false god
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Sunken Hollow
1 command tower
1 watery grave
1 choked estuary
1 drowned catacomb
1 dimir aqueduct
1 temple of deceit
1 Dimir guildgate
1 jwar isle Refuge
1 submerged boneyard
1 fetid pools
1 dismal backwater
13 swamp
9 island
Sticking with the zombie tribal theme for now. I only have about one opportunity a week to test the deck out, so I'll stick with the original idea for now.
I added in
The deck needed to tune the curve and resource management a bit. Previously I'd added some great highcost spells that can win us the game. As such, the curve was a bit high on the top end. Also mana was becoming a problem. I want to keep the curve as low as possible so that I can make use of the god's ability.
Relentless Dead, Bad moon, sign in blood all help lower the curve. I want to be doing things in the early turns so that I can continue to draw cards without having to discard. I was finding too many hands in online goldfish testing that left me with too many high cost spells. I think relentless dead is a bit better than you imagine at first glance. I can curve out with him, then a lord and swing in for 3 turn one, and keep swinging for quite a while. Also, menace, plus all the other abilities are still relevant for him if exiled with the god. It's potential card advantage on a creature.
It seems one of the best routes for the deck is to play out a couple of early zombies and curve into The Scarab God. We want to start scrying the turn after he's played hopefully. It's hard to comprehend how much card advantage the god provides. You almost forget about the fact that you can start scrying nearly every turn with him. I've had multiple games where I start draining people for a ton of life while scrying 4-10+ per turn. If you're draining and scrying while the opponents are at a low creature and/or card state, it's about game over for them.
Keep in mind I've been playing mostly 3-4 player with the occasional 5 player game. Also, my meta just doesn't seem to understand that they need more boardwipes/creature removal in general, and there's almost no graveyard hate at all. Don't think this deck is getting by only my meta's weaknesses however. I think it is quickly becoming one of my most powerful out of the 10 edh decks I have.
These both have some amazing potential for this deck. I like that Josu is already a fair cost on it's own, a 4/5 zombie menace for 4. That looks great alongside a lord and bonkers for 9 mana. Giving zombies menace is huge because we have so many of them, it just helps them stay alive for another swing through people's defenses. It basically looks like a second copy of Army of the Damned, but with added flexibility!
I'm considering changing the deck to "keyword creature abilities" as the focus instead of zombie tribal.
There are a bunch of cheap flying deathtouch creatures out there. I've been wanting to lower my curve to have more relevant 2 and 3 drops.
Already have baleful strix, could add in
I think cards like this, and those with lifelink could be really good for the deck. We want to go shields up because people will want to attack us. I think a never ending supply of deathtouch creatures and flyers will allow us to stay defensive until we can cast a winning spell.
1 Merfolk looter
1 Baleful Strix
1 Palace Familiar
1 Dusk Legion Zealot
1 gifted aetherborn
1 tidehollow strix
1 Vampire nighthawk
1 Malakir Familiar
1 Siren of the silent song
1 Fleshbag marauder
1 Merciless Executioner
1 Diregraf Captain
1 Trinket Mage
1 Grim Haruspex
1 Champion of Wits
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Glen elendra Liege
1 Bone picker
1 Vindictive Lich
1 Hostage Taker
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
1 Mulldrifter
1 Shriekmaw
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Duplicant
1 Grave Titan
1 Dread Summons
1 Curse of Disturbance
1 Rite of replication
1 Army of the Damned
Card Draw 10 (16)
1 Skullclamp
1 Night's Whisper
1 Sign in Blood
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Read the bones
1 Whispering Madness
1 Ancient excavation
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Concentrate
1 Ambition's Cost
1 Rush of Knowledge
Ramp 9 (13)
1 Sol Ring
1 Dimir Signet
1 Fellwar Stone
1 mind stone
1 power stone
1 Commander's Sphere
1 Darksteel ingot
1 Hedron Archive
1 Thran Dynamo
Boardwipes 6
1 cyclonic rift
1 vona's hunger
1 Crux of Fate
1 Deathbringer Regent
1 Plague Wind
1 in Garruk's Wake
1 Swan Song
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Counterspell
1 Muddle the Mixture
Land 39
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Temple of the false god
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Sunken Hollow
1 command tower
1 watery grave
1 choked estuary
1 drowned catacomb
1 dimir aqueduct
1 temple of deceit
1 Dimir guildgate
1 jwar isle Refuge
1 submerged boneyard
1 fetid pools
1 dismal backwater
13 swamp
9 island
I've been reconsidering the advantages of the scarab god as a commander. I'm going to try a more controlling/attrition approach. The deck has a natural card advantage built into the scarab god. We can often replay him for 5 after a boardwipe/blocking with him, plus start using the dead creatures in the graveyards.
I've subtracted many of the zombie buff creatures, along with 2-3 token producers. Card draw seemed better as I have so many creatures/kill spells/boardwipes.
The deck now has a couple more low cmc creatures that cantrip us somewhat.
These creatures look great because of their low cmc, cantrip-like abilities, and their extra advantage when resurrected by the scarab god. The deck wanted a few more relevant early drops that would come back and provide some good value as tokens also. We just want to start playing cards, especially creatures early. This gives us ample opportunity to block/conserve life, while digging through our deck and setting up our graveyard for later.
In addition to the cantrip creatures, I've added some more low cost creatures with nasty abilities.
The deck has quite a fair amount of deathtouch and flying creatures at this point. These seemed like the best abilities to load up on. Deathtouch keeps us from being attacked. Flying ensures we get through late game. Also the "each player sacrifices a creature" effect of fleshbag/executioner were too good to pass up. It's fine to just use play them and sac. themselves to their own ability. Then we play the god, hopefully turn 4, and resurrect them after that. I think this can help shut down some aggro decks. The card advantage looks too good to pass up as well. With 3 opponents, we can potentially get 6 for 1 out of the card after it returns. I'm considering adding slum reaper.
The deck is mana hungry. Leaning into that, I've added another ramp spell. Card draw will also help with land drops. 39 lands help as well.
Adding some more boardwipes should help the deck along.
I've opted for higher cost, more one sided boardwipes. This is a road to victory as I've experienced with this deck before.
Plenty of targeted removal via creatures help us snipe crucial creatures until we draw a board wipe, or start to pull ahead through card advantage. As a plus, they'll keep removing creatures if they die off. It makes us harder to attack because people don't want these removal creatures to die blocking only to be reused next turn.
Adding even more boardwipes could work out. I'll start collecting the cards for it.
I think this deck has a lot more potential than the zombie list. Thoughts anyone?
- Stunt Double: Clone with flash...what's not to like?
- Venser, Shaper Savant: Just a solid, versatile ETB body.
- Clever Impersonator: Another versatile clone.
- Phyrexian Delver: Two bodies for the price of one, and that other body will probably be another value creature...
- Riftwing Cloudskate: More versatile removal.
EDIT: Might as well throw in a couple cuts, since that's always the hardest part.
- Glen Elendra Liege: Does it really matter if your creatures are just a little bigger?
- Champion of Wits: Meh, I'd rather have a Phyrexian Arena or a Phyrexian Rager or the new Twilight Prophet or any number of other blue/black draw spells.
- Bone Picker, Tidehollow Strix, other vanilla creatures with deathtouch: Meh, they don't add an immediate value or impact the board that much. I'd rather play all of the Nekrataal-type guys instead.
Thanks OC Punisher and others who mentioned clones. I stuck two in the deck to be on the safe side. Perhaps more to come.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/the-scarab-god-value-creatures/?cb=1524107850
1 Phantasmal Image
1 looter il-kor
1 Baleful Strix
1 owl familiar
1 Dusk Legion Zealot
1 Vampire nighthawk
1 Fleshbag marauder
1 Diregraf Captain
1 Trinket Mage
1 Champion of Wits
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 duskmantle seer
1 Stunt Double
1 Nekrataal
1 Hostage Taker
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
1 Mulldrifter
1 Shriekmaw
1 Noxious gearhulk
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Duplicant
1 Grave Titan
Token Producers 4
1 Dread Summons
1 Curse of disturbance
1 Rite of replication
1 Army of the Damned
1 Ponder
1 Skullclamp
1 Night's Whisper
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Read the bones
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Concentrate
1 Ancient Craving
1 Ambition's Cost
1 Rush of Knowledge
Ramp 9 (12)
1 Sol Ring
1 Dimir Signet
1 Fellwar Stone
1 mind stone
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Commander's Sphere
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Hedron Archive
1 Thran Dynamo
Boardwipes 8
1 Curse of the swine
1 cyclonic rift
1 Crux of Fate
1 Life's Finale
1 Extinguish all hope
1 Deathbringer Regent
1 Plague Wind
1 in Garruk's Wake
1 Altar of the brood
1 Mindcrank
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Counterspell
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Whip of Erebos
Land 40
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Temple of the false god
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Sunken Hollow
1 command tower
1 watery grave
1 choked estuary
1 drowned catacomb
1 temple of deceit
1 Dimir guildgate
1 jwar isle Refuge
1 submerged boneyard
1 fetid pools
1 dismal backwater
15 swamp
9 island
I retuned my list. It went further into a control/attrition based deck since I was able to order some cards for it and learned a few tricks from this thread.
The idea is to continuosly kill all of our opponent's creatures. This is a deck that aims to win in the late game. We do so with multiple boardwipes (more to be considered) and plenty of creatures with etb destroy creature effects. All the while the deck continously draws cards, plays out cheap creatures, and scries with the Scarab god. Not too mention, we can continously generate card advantage by making tokens of our low cost creatures.
The god works especially well with boardwipes because we can replay our commander for it's initial cost while others must pay that additional tax. That's also the reason we have so many destroy creature etbs. We just plan to continously snipe our opponents' commanders or best creatures in between boardwipes. These strategies work well together. Step one:boardwipe Step two: play out a destroy creature on a stick or resurrect one from the yard to keep an opponent down. Mix and repeat.
Cards worth mentioning:
Champion of Wits does a great job. Note that we get to draw 4 and discard 2 if we make this a token.
Rite of Replication This is also most of a one sided boardwipe if we have a creature out with a destroy creature etb. Also good when making copies of a creature with draw card etb effects.
Skull clamp We have creatures everywhere in this deck. Also potential abuse with our own destroy creature abilities.
Cyclonic Rift and Muddle the Mixture One searches for the other. I have definitely won games through cyclonic rift.
Lightning Greaves to protect commander, but also give haste to tokens.
Rush of Knowledge This is in almost all of my blue decks. Nearly always overperforms.
Mikaeus the unhallowed Incredible in this etb based deck. Also a zombie.
Gravetitan Extra zombies, even if resurrected.
Duskmantle seer considering we are going for an attrition deck, and the scarab god helps drain opponents' life totals, I think this should help more than hurt. It's also a 4/4 flyer for 4 mana, so it checks out.
Looter il-kor keeps up the evasion theme whie also looting. Great effect in a deck that wants to stuff its graveyard.
I really like the idea of stuffing our own deck full of good cheap creatures that are even better when resurrected with the god. This deck continuously plays spells or at least activates the god's ability all game long.
Lots of card draw is great in this deck. A decent number of cheap value creatures help with the game plan. It's something to discourage aggro while adding card advantage. Having a couple of evasive/deathtouch/card draw creatures that hit the yard early helps with any mid/late game slump. Don't underestimate evasion on our creatures in this deck. It's how we seal the deal late game.
All of the above leads to the god's inevitability of us winning.
Also worth noting is that this deck has a high curve. I've found this to be desirable. Any commander with a good activated ability is going to want access to more mana. The deck capitalizes on this by having a plethora of cheaper spells, plenty of ramp, and managing a slightly higher curve. We'll either be blasting away creatures with wipes or summoning creature tokens.
What do you think?
My list is not posted on here because I told my group that I'm NOT supposed to optimize this one.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
- Training Grounds: Cuts your activation cost in half. I had it in the first game I played with Scarab, and it's like a cheat code. EDIT: Heartstone should probably also go in here (thanks MTGMuddstah!)
- Oracle of Dust: A little-known card, but it draws, fills up your yard, AND re-buys the best of your opponents' (opponent's?) guys. The best part is that you can do it over and over again until you run out of mana.
- Tragic Slip: For one mana, you can (usually) put an indestructible guy of (almost) any size into the yard.
- Disciple of Bolas: If your average creature is a 4/4 token, you can do worse than off it for 4 life and four cards.
And as always, a couple cuts to go with them:
- Duskmantle Seer: Unless you're going for a group hug theme, it doesn't pay to give things away. Also, the high curve makes this less good.
- Duplicant, Curse of the Swine: If your goal is to put stuff in the graveyard, exile effects are counter-productive.
- Concentrate: There are other creatures (like the Disciple above) that do this with more synergy, or at instant speed.
OCPunisher you may be right about Duskmantle seer. I thought it would be cool to have a another card that would drain opponents. I could probably find a better slot for this. You should post your decklist and explain it's theory here. The god has so many different strategies going for it.
Curse of the swine is one of the best blue cards around. This thing can take care of a field of eldrazi like a boss. Perhaps slightly anti-synergy, but the pay off is too good. We just want more onesided boardwipes for my build. After all, our creatures are easily outclassed in the beginning.
Also funny you don't care for champion of wits. He digs 4 cards deep when reanimated, and helps out immensely early on to fix your hand. I just want to reach those answers and have that early creature that hits the yard. I do run more creatures than you though, which helps add value to him. If your hand's total cmc is too high in the beginning, you can dump a more expensive creature and get value out of it soon after that.
Tragic slip does look appealing. I did go down to 2 counterspells recently though. I might rather have a 3rd one of those than this.
Duplicant can exile a creature, or even 2. This just seems too relevant with the indestructible badasses running around in my meta.
I may just steal Wurmcoil engine from my artifact deck for this build.
The goal of this version is to attrition our opponents out of resources through wipes and removal, all the while amassing more for ourselves. Curse of the swine is basically a board wipe only better. I built the deck to have a good amount of consistency in it. The things that help with consistency are having plenty of small creatures and cheap draw spells. We want to be maximizing mana through land plays/draw and ramp. All the while, playing cards out of our hand. This deck has so much card advantage, we need cheap spells to dump early in order to keep drawing cards. This deck rarely ever goes below 4 or 5 cards in hand. I think this strategy of playing out a couple of cheap early creatures to stave off early attacks, while setting up for a boardwipe or other nasty control later works quite nicely. (I have a few recent tests. 2 wins and 2 losses last week. Not bad for 3 and 4 player games.)
I see the god like this: If we can maintain parity with our opponents throughout most of the game, we are actually getting ahead of them through scry triggers and life loss. As long as we keep killing off commanders and boardwiping, we will win in the end. The strategy has been working so far. I also like the idea of using more boardwipe/destroy creature effects to fill the 'yards instead of more straight mill. The boardwipes serve 2 purposes while mill only serves one. I did take Altar of the brood and Mindcrank as a nod to ocpunisher. These are cheap cards that we can play out early and add value all game long.
I’ll post my list later, but I still don’t like the exile effects. Even Eldrazi or Theros gods can be answered by bounce, edicts, or stealing. Luckily these colors have a plethora of all these types of effects.
In general, the deck can execute it's plan keeping our opponents' creatures down while we continue to develop our board. The destroy creature effects on a creature are crazy good for killing people's commanders. With the right draw, we can basically keep everyone else's commanders off the board while we go to town. I like playing a lot of boardwipes, as we don't really mind them. Just replay the god for the same cost, then start resurrecting stuff out of the graveyard.
I like that the deck is a big mana deck now. Gilded Lotus is definitely a good include for the deck. Josu vess, lich knight and Final Parting are both auto includes. Lich knight has definitely won me games.
Rites of replication is stupid powerful in this deck. I did get to make my stupid play of copying Noxious gearhulk (or any other destroy creature on a stick) kicked. I went from being behind in life and board position, to having only my creatures, plus 6 gearhulks on the board and a bunch of life.
The deck has been winning more games than it looses! I love it. I'll post a more refined control list sometime and talk about the nuances.
I love playing the scarab god. Anyone else have something to share about him?
I made all opponents lose 15 with the upkeep trigger. Then I boardwiped, getting 2 lifeloss per zombie on the field, netting me another 30 damage to dish out. It was a great win!
The deck has been tuned. I took out some card draw which was a bit redundant.
New additions to the deck:
Dakra mystic was a blast to play. Cutting our opponents off their best creatures while we get to play them later is too much fun.
Siren stormtamer protects us from inevitable hate this deck draws. We could also use more early drop creatures.
Arcane Adaptation is good enough even if you only have the scarab god out. I like this better than a traditional token producing card because this is likely to stay on the board throughout the whole game, where as making token zombies can just get boardwiped away.
Liliana is better than I first thought. Being able to reuse a destroy creature ability multiple times is great. Note that she doesn't exile the creature, it will just go back to the graveyard once it dies. This planeswalker tends to stick around due to the nature of our deck. Our opponents just much less likely to have profitable attacks due to all of our removal. I'm considering adding in Liliana of the Veil to the deck too.
1 Dakra Mystic
1 Siren Stormtamer
1 Phantasmal Image
1 looter il-kor
1 Baleful Strix
1 owl familiar
1 Dusk Legion Zealot
1 Fleshbag marauder
1 Trinket Mage
1 Champion of Wits
1 Grim Haruspex
1 Diregraf Captain
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Stunt Double
1 Nekrataal
1 Hostage Taker
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
1 Mulldrifter
1 Sidisi, Undead vizier
1 Noxious gearhulk
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Duplicant
1 Grave Titan
Zombie Producers 6
1 Dread Summons
1 Arcane Adaptation
1 Josu Vess, Lich Knight
1 Liliana, Death's Majesty
1 Rite of replication
1 Army of the Damned
1 Skullclamp
1 Read the bones
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Concentrate
1 Ambition's Cost
1 Final Parting
1 Rush of Knowledge
Ramp 9 (11)
1 Sol Ring
1 Fellwar Stone
1 mind stone
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Dimir Signet
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Hedron Archive
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Gilded Lotus
Boardwipes 7
1 Curse of the swine
1 cyclonic rift
1 Crux of Fate
1 Life's Finale
1 Extinguish all hope
1 Plague Wind
1 In Garruk's Wake
Other 6
1 Altar of the brood
1 Mindcrank
1 Exsanguinate
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Counterspell
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Myriad Landscape
1 Temple of the false god
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Sunken Hollow
1 command tower
1 watery grave
1 choked estuary
1 drowned catacomb
1 temple of deceit
1 Dimir guildgate
1 jwar isle Refuge
1 submerged boneyard
1 fetid pools
1 dismal backwater
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
13 swamp
9 island
Sometimes I feel like my deck could use more threats to close out the game. That could just be my unfamiliarity with playing control in commander however. There can be some hair-raising moments when it seems like I'm falling behind. I always seem to find a game winning card before it's too late though. Also, we can have little to do in the early game a lot of the time. Not sure if I should try to lower the curve or keep playing as is, since the deck is on a winning streak.
The list is really coming together. This is quickly becoming my favorite deck to play.
Also adding in Reiver Demon, Extractor Demon and Altar of Dementia.
I decided to go ahead and post the incomplete primer (on the first post.) Excuse the poor formatting, lack of completeness et. An incomplete primer is better than nothing. I'll keep updating it at least once a week.
Also we do need at least one colorless boardwipe because some artifacts and enchantments will ruin our day. My meta is a "Bane of Progress" meta where artifacts get out of hand so fast and enchantments also are generally very dangerous. Scarab is still actually good in these metas, but you basically need to accept that you can't actually stop their manarocks without relying on other decks to give you the tools.
I also don't notice much graveyard hate. Yes, this deck does take stuff off of other people's graveyards, but sometimes it is needed, particularly with noncreature abuse. Nihil Spellbomb is the option that requires the least commitment, while the choice that is a dedicated hate card but with the most synergy here is Agent of Erebos. It all depends on if you need it though. I play a metric ton of graveyard strategies, so I always expect it and also pack it.
If you play a ton of wipes, Revel in Riches can get a ton of mana and require an answer from opponents. My build is unoptimized by my standards and is always getting stuff added to it and taken out.
Spellseeker is nuts. I plan on retooling the deck so that it can get at least one of every type of answer I need.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
I updated the list again pretty significantly. I added bojuka bog instead of nihil spellbomb. I took out Temple of the False God for it. I don't have too many tapped lands, and temple can kind of screw me over sometimes. There's only one player in my meta who really makes us of their 'yard. That's why there's been a lack so far.
I had been feeling the need for one more counterspell too. I had put in negate, but unwind does seem better. I like that we can counter something and still use the god's ability after that.
I like the Revel in Riches suggestion. I was looking for a card that could win me the game without having to attack in. It had to be useful in other ways though too. This is perfect. I will have to make a cut for it.
I know you're intentionally using an non-optimized list. I'm going to make proxies of the lands I need and make two decks for this bad boy. I love playing zombie tribal, but it's less than ideal. I'm keeping this list as my best/optimized, then recreate my zombie tribal as my for fun/not so competitive list. If you have an itch to build a new deck, you could build the scarab god with a new theme, make it more competitive, and keep your just for fun deck around too.
1 Siren Stormtamer
1 Phantasmal Image
1 looter il-kor
1 Merfolk looter
1 Baleful Strix
1 dusk legion zealot
1 owl familiar
1 Thought courier
1 Fleshbag marauder
1 Trinket Mage
1 Champion of Wits
1 Spellseeker
1 Stunt Double
1 Nekrataal
1 Hostage Taker
1 Ravenous Chupacabra
1 Mulldrifter
1 Wurmcoil engine
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Demonlord Belzenlok
1 Grave Titan
1 Extractor Demon
Card Draw/tutor 11 (16)
1 Skullclamp
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Entomb
1 Vampiric tutor
1 Night's Whisper
1 Read the bones
1 Compulsive Research
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Concentrate
1 Final Parting
1 Rush of Knowledge
1 Sol Ring
1 Thought Vessel
1 Fellwar Stone
1 mind stone
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Dimir Signet
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Hedron Archive
1 Thran Dynamo
Boardwipes 7
1 Curse of the swine
1 cyclonic rift
1 Damnation
1 Crux of Fate
1 Life's Finale
1 Reiver Demon
1 In Garruk's Wake
Other 11
1 Mindcrank
1 Altar of Dementia
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Swiftfoot boots
1 Counterspell
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Unwind
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Revel in Riches
1 Rite of replication
1 Army of the Damned
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Polluted Delta
1 Sunken Hollow
1 command tower
1 watery grave
1 choked estuary
1 drowned catacomb
1 temple of deceit
1 Dimir guildgate
1 jwar isle Refuge
1 submerged boneyard
1 fetid pools
1 dismal backwater
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Bojuka bog
11 swamp
10 island
That card is absolutely kill-on-sight. I also still think you need at least one out to enchantments. At least you have Hostage Taker for artifacts. You got time to get these, I suppose.
I tend to win off of a rite of rep copying Gray Merchant a decent amount of the time. I'm trying to figure out what else is optimal, but even cards like Army of the Damned aren't guaranteed given that I don't expect my stuff to live.
Not expecting my cards to survive is a big motivator for the way I build decks.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.
I just don't see how jamming in an extra artifact/enchantment destruction or two is that big a deal in edh if you're not in the right colors for it. If you only have 2-3 artifact/enchantment removal spells in the game, you don't stand a very good chance of drawing them in time anyway.
Dropping money on Damnation spellseeker Mystical tutor and a bit more on this card order. Training grounds will be another time, but it will happen I'm sure.
Cards are on order for the deck, looking forward to playing it again! Bagged another win last weekend in 5 way free-for-all.
However, they also aren't cheap and so I can understanding waiting on getting those cards.
If you have a decent number of tutors, then you only need one.
EDIT: I'd get the Training Grounds sooner rather than later. I hear it is good to curve turn 4 mini-Bolas into flipping it T5 uber-Bolas.
The Unidentified Fantastic Flying Girl.
EDH
Xenagos, the God of Stompy
The Gitrog Monster: Oppressive Value.
Marchesa, Marionette Master - Undying Robots
Yuriko, the Hydra Omnivore
I make dolls as a hobby.