I decided to add a bit more card "draw" to ensure I can keep up with the game. I still want to cut Wheel of Fortune as I don't like it is quite good enough. Windfall is in the same boat. Timetwister gets a pass for now for being able to save my graveyard and I really want at least one effect that I can use early on in the game to refuel.
I played a game today with these changes in place. I played against Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain and Ruric Thar, the Unbowed. The game got out of hand basically right away. I got a Signet down turn 2 and then Bolas down turn 3. Jhoira discarded a Hellkite Tyrant and Ruric Thar discarded an Anger. Jhoira then discarded a Dack Fayden to hand size (I think). 2 turns later, I cast Command the Dreadhorde to get those 3 cards. Dack stole a Seat of the Synod and Hellkite attacked Jhoira next turn to steal everything else. I got 4 artifacts total from Jhoira and then got 3 more a turn or 2 later. This allowed me to just accelerate way past the other two and I started to not even bother activating planeswalkers since it would take too long. I think the game was over in about 15-20 minutes after I stole all those artifacts.
Because of how quickly the game went, it is hard to really evaluate the deck. I did get Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Jace, Unraveler of Secrets down and both bounced some tokens Ruric Thar had so they couldn't block which allowed me to kill them with exactly enough damage. I did drop in Nicol Bolas, God-Pharoah which also killed a token. Mostly because I just wanted to clear their board but the "right" play would have obviously been to just shoot them for 7. I didn't even bother transforming Bolas since he was fine as a creature.
I did see Fact or Fiction in the game and I did cast it. Since the game was basically over, Jhoira gave me a 5-0 split so I got all 5 cards. 1 of them was the Bolas mentioned above and 3 were lands that I definitely didn't want. If they had legitimately tried to split them up, I think I still would have been happy with getting Bolas and a land (probably). I didn't see any of the other cards so I can't comment on how well they work.
How are you finding Smoke and War Tax working for you? I'm looking at options for some light combat deterrence and whether these have held their weight. The other suggestion that's come up on my thread was Leyline of Singularity, which I think is a little niche. It'll supercharge Jhoira's cantrip with some auxiliary effects on combat against token builds, but I don't know if it'll do enough to justify a slot.
I agree that Leyline is pretty niche. Since we are already in a singleton format, it really only works against tokens (as you mentioned) and that probably isn't worth it.
As for Smoke and War Tax (and probably Meekstone as well): I don't really know. I have gotten each one down once. Smoke did nothing, Meekstone came down too late to ever make a difference (I was already winning) and I have been banking on the potential of War Tax rather than its actual effect. It is rare where I want to keep up mana for it which means that if I do have mana, the rest of the deck isn't working well. The one game I had it in I was able to activate it because I didn't have anything else. And it is tough to actually protect Walkers since it has to be activated every turn. I have gotten close to cutting both Smoke and War Tax because I didn't need them in the games I won and they wouldn't have helped in the games I lost.
Your experience with them may differ of course, but I am starting to believe they are not worth the slots.
EDIT: I had to re-read your comment on Jhoira and, unless I am misunderstanding what you are trying to do, it doesn't work with Jhoira to draw extra cards. Jhoira triggers on cast and the permanents you get are not Legendary until they resolve which is too late for Jhoira to see them as Legendary.
EDIT: I had to re-read your comment on Jhoira and, unless I am misunderstanding what you are trying to do, it doesn't work with Jhoira to draw extra cards. Jhoira triggers on cast and the permanents you get are not Legendary until they resolve which is too late for Jhoira to see them as Legendary.
I did wonder if this would be the case. Another strike against Leyline. It's cute, but it won't get a slot.
As for Smoke and War Tax (and probably Meekstone as well): I don't really know. I have gotten each one down once. Smoke did nothing, Meekstone came down too late to ever make a difference (I was already winning) and I have been banking on the potential of War Tax rather than its actual effect. It is rare where I want to keep up mana for it which means that if I do have mana, the rest of the deck isn't working well. The one game I had it in I was able to activate it because I didn't have anything else. And it is tough to actually protect Walkers since it has to be activated every turn. I have gotten close to cutting both Smoke and War Tax because I didn't need them in the games I won and they wouldn't have helped in the games I lost.
Your experience with them may differ of course, but I am starting to believe they are not worth the slots.
Thanks for this feedback. War Tax feels like it'd be a little easier to replace with a simple Propaganda, really. Smoke I like in theory, but end of the day it still means that creatures get at least one chance to swing at you before they get locked down. I'm not sure if there's really anything better than it than just running more removal.
Thanks for this feedback. War Tax feels like it'd be a little easier to replace with a simple Propaganda, really. Smoke I like in theory, but end of the day it still means that creatures get at least one chance to swing at you before they get locked down. I'm not sure if there's really anything better than it than just running more removal.
The main issue with Propaganda (and Koskun Falls) is that they don't prevent your walkers from being attacked. I think you are on the right track: more removal to just keep the board clear is preferable to trying to slow down people with developed boards. There is almost no good way to just slow people down without devoting a bunch of resources to it. I like Kazuul because it makes players think about attacking, it just works by virtue of being on the board, and it can potentially give you enough tokens to either block future attacks or swing back at players. But, most spells I am finding that try to stop attacks are just not worth it. Even Silent Arbiter might be better than Smoke and War Tax.
Kazuul has been good for me too. Set and forget combat control is really nice. Ideally something like Sudden Spoiling but indefinite, or reusable, would be the perfect compliment to this deck.
The 6 mana chandra that sweeps the board puts in a ton of work in these types of decks, doubling as a sweeper and powerful card advantage and a closer.
I'd consider playing Archaeomancer. With Evacuation it's pretty much GG with a walker or two. And you surely have enough targets.
The Scorpion God may actually be a pretty legit thing to play in this deck. It blocks every turn, it kills dudes, it draws cards, it uses excess mana when you don't want to overcommit.
Black Sun's Zenith might be a better sweeper than damnation for this deck, because it gives you the option to 1) kill indestructible creatures like toxic deluge, 2) leave creatures at very low P/T when you don't want them recast at full power.
Probably much better than stuff like Meekstone, which is situational and trades poorly with removal. Grave Titan for example rates to leave behind two additional chump blockers and threaten to be repeatedly reanimated later.
In general I think grixis is going to do better being proactive around board state than trying to set up a permanents-based pillow fort like Bant or something. Cards like Humility, Moat and Sphere of Safety make that more desirable in something white based.
All around looks pretty fun to me for a superfriends deck
I had Chandra early on and ended up cutting her. 6 mana is just too much for only 4 damage to everything and that is the ability that really draws me to her. The tokens and card draw aren't terrible but also aren't really needed.
Archaeomancer is a pretty good suggestion. It can get back quite a few good spells and the synergy with Evacuation is pretty good.
The main issue with The Scorpion God is that he is kind of expensive for his ability to do much. Drawing cards is great, but I don't often find I have enough extra mana to really make use of him. I think in a more artifact oriented build it might work out better but it is rare that I will have even 3 mana open and that only gets 1 counter on one creature. Being a big blocker might be enough though. I am not sold on him.
You bring up a good point with Black Sun's in that it deals with Indestructible stuff. Unfortunately, the mana investment is still pretty high to get something really big dealt with. And I am not sure how many times I would want to leave things around but weakened. I can monitor my games to see if this would ever be good in a certain situation as I am open to the idea of it, but I think it has enough drawbacks as to not be worth it.
Demon and Wurm don't do well with the big stuff and I am not in a meta with a lot of tokens. Grave Titan and Inferno Titan might be worth it. I do like that Grave Titan, at worst, will keep 2 tokens around even if it dies before it can attack. I might try to slot that in to see if it does anything. The mana cost, again, is a concern but the card is powerful.
We do have some decks making tokens and spamming the board, but they are generally bigger than X/2's. So, yes, we are bigger on the fatties overall. I ended up cutting Wurm and Demon from Karador a long time ago because of it and I have never missed them.
Now, about Archfiend...I am not sure how I forgot about that card, but that is something worth considering. He is a "better" Smoke and arguably does the same, if not more, than War Tax. And Meekstone becomes less relevant if they are sacrificing their stuff anyway. As I said above, I am getting down on Smoke anyway, so I will try swapping that for the Archfiend. I will likely try cutting Meekstone for Grave Titan and then just cutting War Tax for 'Mancer. With all 3 cut, I can see how much they really mattered (I expect the answer is "very little"). Even if I don't like the Titan for whatever reason (the only one I am not entirely sure on) he is likely better than the other 3 cards anyway.
Yeah, archfiend is definitely better than smoke. He's a big fat flier which helps with a problem your deck is likely to have anyway (fliers).
It's really tough to say if grave titan will be good or not, it's really meta dependent. Sometimes he just runs away with games, other times he gets flown over. The nice part about him though is if people are flying over him sometimes you can race with his giant army of zombies and huge body.
A meta where Massacre Wurm is not devastating is very interesting to me, lol. I don't think I have ever played in one. I have literally died to it more than once.
Regarding Wurm: to be honest, it might be more because our meta, in general, is pretty high on wraths already. So, in order for Wurm to be good, people have to had time to build an army and that just doesn't happen. The big token makers in my meta are Avenger and Omnath and both sets of tokens are outside Wurm's "influence". I can't think of any off hand that really spit out a lot of small creatures (tokens or otherwise).
There might be a deck in my meta where it would make a difference but it definitely sounds like, overall, my meta isn't quite as impacted by Wurm as yours
After some further consideration on where I want this deck to be, I have decided to also cut Meekstone in favor of Archfiend of Depravity (per the conversation above). I think Archfiend being a bit more powerful (clearing away the board rather than just locking it down), dealing with tokens better, and being a flyer that can attack or block means that it has more benefits overall than Meekstone.
Interestingly, I think this shines a light on Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs as being my remaining "Propaganda" type effect. I do still like the effect he can have on the game, but it is possible that Grave Titan spitting out tokens and Archfiend forcing things to be sacrificed mean that Kazuul won't put in as much work as I want him to. Time will tell though.
Hows the deck running at present? Any comments regarding the recent additions? I've had a couple of playtests recently and fairly happy with how things are for Vial and Kraum, although I'm definitely interested in ways to bring walkers back from the 'ýard. Just wondering if you have any feedback on The Eldest Reborn, Deliver Unto Evil and The Elderspell?
I've also had a Grave Titan come free, so wondering if this has held its own here; likewise with Archfiend of Depravity. I've found it's nice to have early walkers, but it definitely draws attention if you don't have something to protect it - I've been tossing up freeing up a Phyrexian Obliterator for this too, purely for presenting a difficult choice to opponents in swinging at me (although admittedly BBBB is tough for tri colours). Also, in this respect I can really recommend Ugin, the Ineffable as a great option. He makes your rocks more or less free, his spirits are excellent chump blockers that you sort of want to die anyway, and his third ability is obviously great control.
I actually just played this deck last night and it did super well. Dig Through Time made an appearance which helped me hit my land drops. Command the Dreadhorde allowed me to get back 3 walkers. 2 died right away due to an opposing Vampire Hexmage and just being attacked but I still got value out of them. I ended up winning the game with Nicol Bolas God Pharoah and Spark Double copying Nicol Bolas to take just grind out value.
I am still convinced I don't want Wheel of Fortune or Sorin Markov. I ended up discarding them early to Dack. I never saw Deliver Unto Evil so I can't comment on it. I did have The Eldest Reborn but I was holding off on it since I wanted to get better value with the first ability but I never got a real chance to do that before I cast Memory from Commit // Memory to get a better hand. This was probably a mistake not to at least drop it in and see what I could get out of it but I had other things I wanted to use my mana for instead.
I did get a Grave Titan down which was actually instrumental in killing the Sidisi player. I ended up with 6 tokens total. A play that occurred early on was me stealing Sidisi's Altar of Dementia with Dack just so they couldn't use it. Obviously I had no use for it so it just sat on the field doing nothing. However, one turn I cast Evacuation and sacrificed my Grave Titan and the tokens to mill Sidisi. Since they had been going pretty heavy on the self mill, and I had exiled their graveyard at one point with Ashiok and Crypt Incursion (I gained 42 life off that) they had very few cards left. They milled and they attempted to shuffle things back in with a Perpetual Timepiece but I countered the ability with Disallow. I then got to my turn and got down a Contruct from Karn and a Deepglow Skate which I sacrificed to mill them out the rest of the way. They essentially died to their own Altar which was kind of cool.
The Titan did help prevent me from getting attacked with Muldrotha and a few other creatures so it worked out pretty decently. And, since it has Deathtouch, no one wanted to block it so I got more tokens. In this game it worked out very well.
I am not sold on Obliterator mostly because of the mana cost. Even yesterday I am not sure when I got to 4 black sources but it was not early on. I get the idea of making opponents make a difficult choice, and it does seem pretty good on paper and if you do try it out, I would like to hear what your experiences are with it. But, I am not too sure on whether the restrictive mana cost can be easily overcome for it to really do much.
Ugin, on the other hand, seems pretty good. I don't run as many rocks as you do, but it can be relevant. The token and card from the token seem really good too. The ability to destroy a permanent is also really good. As I said above, I don't like Sorin so I might just try to do a straight swap.
Oblit really suffers from being a priority removal target and then winding up being negative cards as people kill it and then beat your walkers down. Titan is much more costly to sweep up and can run away with the game.
I am not sold on Obliterator mostly because of the mana cost. Even yesterday I am not sure when I got to 4 black sources but it was not early on. I get the idea of making opponents make a difficult choice, and it does seem pretty good on paper and if you do try it out, I would like to hear what your experiences are with it. But, I am not too sure on whether the restrictive mana cost can be easily overcome for it to really do much.
I share the same reservations to be honest. BBBB is difficult in a tricolour deck, and it has no evasion. I haven't seen it recently in my Glissa build to know if it's pulling weight there, so I had thought of trying it here, purely because my build definitely has the 'árchenemy' vibe to it. I may have to try out Grave Titan, it seems to have decent enough value.
Ugin, on the other hand, seems pretty good. I don't run as many rocks as you do, but it can be relevant. The token and card from the token seem really good too. The ability to destroy a permanent is also really good. As I said above, I don't like Sorin so I might just try to do a straight swap.
Ugin has been great for me. The static ability aside, his first ability is awesome, those spirit tokens are made to chump block. It actually kind of forces the difficult decision of 'if I swing and he chumps, what is he going to draw into?'. Last game I had Ugin in play, those cards were Spark Double and Sheoldred, Whispering One. Add in his removal and he really is multifunctional and good value. I'd say Sorin Markov you wouldn't miss swapping him in.
How have Deliver unto Evil and The Eldest Reborn worked out? They seem reasonable as stop gaps for the times I can't find a blocker. Interested to hear how The Elderspell is working out, too. Seems fairly conditional, but I guess some of the ultimates out there are probably worth it.
I have yet to actually draw Deliver into Evil so I can't say too much about that.
The Eldest Reborn has been valuable in some situations. It has never been spectacular but it isn't really here as a game-changing spell. When I got it down, it did enough to earn the spot in the deck by having players sac things and then get back the best Walker in the graveyard. The main issue with the blocking comment is that it is really easy for our opponents to not be affected by the "sac a creature" ability just by having a lot of creatures. I still think it is good, but it won't necessarily turn the game around.
I did have the Elderspell yesterday but I had no Walkers to destroy or any Walkers to put counters onto. It was at a time when I had 2 cards in hand and not much of a board so I can't say too much about it. I think the potential is very high regarding getting off a big ultimate and it helps protect us against opposing Superfriends decks. But, I have never actually cast it yet so it is another that I can't speak too much about.
These are fair assessments. I think I could leave The Elderspell, but I might try out Deliver unto Evil, purely because there aren't a ton of ways to get a spent walker from the yard to the field again, and in a good case scenario it's good value.
There's a couple of spots I'm thinking of as flexes (Inspiring Statuary is my big one rn) so I might try The Eldest Reborn and see how it plays out. I think timing is probably key in getting max value from it.
1 Viral Drake
1 Contagion Clasp
1 Nicol Bolas, the Deceiver
1 Clever Impersonator
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Dig Through Time
1 Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain
1 Commit // Memory
I decided to add a bit more card "draw" to ensure I can keep up with the game. I still want to cut Wheel of Fortune as I don't like it is quite good enough. Windfall is in the same boat. Timetwister gets a pass for now for being able to save my graveyard and I really want at least one effect that I can use early on in the game to refuel.
I played a game today with these changes in place. I played against Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain and Ruric Thar, the Unbowed. The game got out of hand basically right away. I got a Signet down turn 2 and then Bolas down turn 3. Jhoira discarded a Hellkite Tyrant and Ruric Thar discarded an Anger. Jhoira then discarded a Dack Fayden to hand size (I think). 2 turns later, I cast Command the Dreadhorde to get those 3 cards. Dack stole a Seat of the Synod and Hellkite attacked Jhoira next turn to steal everything else. I got 4 artifacts total from Jhoira and then got 3 more a turn or 2 later. This allowed me to just accelerate way past the other two and I started to not even bother activating planeswalkers since it would take too long. I think the game was over in about 15-20 minutes after I stole all those artifacts.
Because of how quickly the game went, it is hard to really evaluate the deck. I did get Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Jace, Unraveler of Secrets down and both bounced some tokens Ruric Thar had so they couldn't block which allowed me to kill them with exactly enough damage. I did drop in Nicol Bolas, God-Pharoah which also killed a token. Mostly because I just wanted to clear their board but the "right" play would have obviously been to just shoot them for 7. I didn't even bother transforming Bolas since he was fine as a creature.
I did see Fact or Fiction in the game and I did cast it. Since the game was basically over, Jhoira gave me a 5-0 split so I got all 5 cards. 1 of them was the Bolas mentioned above and 3 were lands that I definitely didn't want. If they had legitimately tried to split them up, I think I still would have been happy with getting Bolas and a land (probably). I didn't see any of the other cards so I can't comment on how well they work.
As for Smoke and War Tax (and probably Meekstone as well): I don't really know. I have gotten each one down once. Smoke did nothing, Meekstone came down too late to ever make a difference (I was already winning) and I have been banking on the potential of War Tax rather than its actual effect. It is rare where I want to keep up mana for it which means that if I do have mana, the rest of the deck isn't working well. The one game I had it in I was able to activate it because I didn't have anything else. And it is tough to actually protect Walkers since it has to be activated every turn. I have gotten close to cutting both Smoke and War Tax because I didn't need them in the games I won and they wouldn't have helped in the games I lost.
Your experience with them may differ of course, but I am starting to believe they are not worth the slots.
EDIT: I had to re-read your comment on Jhoira and, unless I am misunderstanding what you are trying to do, it doesn't work with Jhoira to draw extra cards. Jhoira triggers on cast and the permanents you get are not Legendary until they resolve which is too late for Jhoira to see them as Legendary.
I did wonder if this would be the case. Another strike against Leyline. It's cute, but it won't get a slot.
Thanks for this feedback. War Tax feels like it'd be a little easier to replace with a simple Propaganda, really. Smoke I like in theory, but end of the day it still means that creatures get at least one chance to swing at you before they get locked down. I'm not sure if there's really anything better than it than just running more removal.
chandra, flamecaller
I'd consider playing Archaeomancer. With Evacuation it's pretty much GG with a walker or two. And you surely have enough targets.
The Scorpion God may actually be a pretty legit thing to play in this deck. It blocks every turn, it kills dudes, it draws cards, it uses excess mana when you don't want to overcommit.
Black Sun's Zenith might be a better sweeper than damnation for this deck, because it gives you the option to 1) kill indestructible creatures like toxic deluge, 2) leave creatures at very low P/T when you don't want them recast at full power.
Playing a few board clearing creatures may be worth considering, stuff like Demon of Dark Schemes or Massacre wurm or Grave TItan or inferno Titan. These guys excel at protecting your board state.
Probably much better than stuff like Meekstone, which is situational and trades poorly with removal. Grave Titan for example rates to leave behind two additional chump blockers and threaten to be repeatedly reanimated later.
In general I think grixis is going to do better being proactive around board state than trying to set up a permanents-based pillow fort like Bant or something. Cards like Humility, Moat and Sphere of Safety make that more desirable in something white based.
All around looks pretty fun to me for a superfriends deck
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Archaeomancer is a pretty good suggestion. It can get back quite a few good spells and the synergy with Evacuation is pretty good.
The main issue with The Scorpion God is that he is kind of expensive for his ability to do much. Drawing cards is great, but I don't often find I have enough extra mana to really make use of him. I think in a more artifact oriented build it might work out better but it is rare that I will have even 3 mana open and that only gets 1 counter on one creature. Being a big blocker might be enough though. I am not sold on him.
You bring up a good point with Black Sun's in that it deals with Indestructible stuff. Unfortunately, the mana investment is still pretty high to get something really big dealt with. And I am not sure how many times I would want to leave things around but weakened. I can monitor my games to see if this would ever be good in a certain situation as I am open to the idea of it, but I think it has enough drawbacks as to not be worth it.
Demon and Wurm don't do well with the big stuff and I am not in a meta with a lot of tokens. Grave Titan and Inferno Titan might be worth it. I do like that Grave Titan, at worst, will keep 2 tokens around even if it dies before it can attack. I might try to slot that in to see if it does anything. The mana cost, again, is a concern but the card is powerful.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Now, about Archfiend...I am not sure how I forgot about that card, but that is something worth considering. He is a "better" Smoke and arguably does the same, if not more, than War Tax. And Meekstone becomes less relevant if they are sacrificing their stuff anyway. As I said above, I am getting down on Smoke anyway, so I will try swapping that for the Archfiend. I will likely try cutting Meekstone for Grave Titan and then just cutting War Tax for 'Mancer. With all 3 cut, I can see how much they really mattered (I expect the answer is "very little"). Even if I don't like the Titan for whatever reason (the only one I am not entirely sure on) he is likely better than the other 3 cards anyway.
It's really tough to say if grave titan will be good or not, it's really meta dependent. Sometimes he just runs away with games, other times he gets flown over. The nice part about him though is if people are flying over him sometimes you can race with his giant army of zombies and huge body.
A meta where Massacre Wurm is not devastating is very interesting to me, lol. I don't think I have ever played in one. I have literally died to it more than once.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
There might be a deck in my meta where it would make a difference but it definitely sounds like, overall, my meta isn't quite as impacted by Wurm as yours
1 Smoke
1 War Tax
1 Archaeomancer
1 Grave Titan
Interestingly, I think this shines a light on Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs as being my remaining "Propaganda" type effect. I do still like the effect he can have on the game, but it is possible that Grave Titan spitting out tokens and Archfiend forcing things to be sacrificed mean that Kazuul won't put in as much work as I want him to. Time will tell though.
1 Meekstone
1 Archfiend of Depravity
I've also had a Grave Titan come free, so wondering if this has held its own here; likewise with Archfiend of Depravity. I've found it's nice to have early walkers, but it definitely draws attention if you don't have something to protect it - I've been tossing up freeing up a Phyrexian Obliterator for this too, purely for presenting a difficult choice to opponents in swinging at me (although admittedly BBBB is tough for tri colours). Also, in this respect I can really recommend Ugin, the Ineffable as a great option. He makes your rocks more or less free, his spirits are excellent chump blockers that you sort of want to die anyway, and his third ability is obviously great control.
I am still convinced I don't want Wheel of Fortune or Sorin Markov. I ended up discarding them early to Dack. I never saw Deliver Unto Evil so I can't comment on it. I did have The Eldest Reborn but I was holding off on it since I wanted to get better value with the first ability but I never got a real chance to do that before I cast Memory from Commit // Memory to get a better hand. This was probably a mistake not to at least drop it in and see what I could get out of it but I had other things I wanted to use my mana for instead.
I did get a Grave Titan down which was actually instrumental in killing the Sidisi player. I ended up with 6 tokens total. A play that occurred early on was me stealing Sidisi's Altar of Dementia with Dack just so they couldn't use it. Obviously I had no use for it so it just sat on the field doing nothing. However, one turn I cast Evacuation and sacrificed my Grave Titan and the tokens to mill Sidisi. Since they had been going pretty heavy on the self mill, and I had exiled their graveyard at one point with Ashiok and Crypt Incursion (I gained 42 life off that) they had very few cards left. They milled and they attempted to shuffle things back in with a Perpetual Timepiece but I countered the ability with Disallow. I then got to my turn and got down a Contruct from Karn and a Deepglow Skate which I sacrificed to mill them out the rest of the way. They essentially died to their own Altar which was kind of cool.
The Titan did help prevent me from getting attacked with Muldrotha and a few other creatures so it worked out pretty decently. And, since it has Deathtouch, no one wanted to block it so I got more tokens. In this game it worked out very well.
I am not sold on Obliterator mostly because of the mana cost. Even yesterday I am not sure when I got to 4 black sources but it was not early on. I get the idea of making opponents make a difficult choice, and it does seem pretty good on paper and if you do try it out, I would like to hear what your experiences are with it. But, I am not too sure on whether the restrictive mana cost can be easily overcome for it to really do much.
Ugin, on the other hand, seems pretty good. I don't run as many rocks as you do, but it can be relevant. The token and card from the token seem really good too. The ability to destroy a permanent is also really good. As I said above, I don't like Sorin so I might just try to do a straight swap.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
I share the same reservations to be honest. BBBB is difficult in a tricolour deck, and it has no evasion. I haven't seen it recently in my Glissa build to know if it's pulling weight there, so I had thought of trying it here, purely because my build definitely has the 'árchenemy' vibe to it. I may have to try out Grave Titan, it seems to have decent enough value.
Ugin has been great for me. The static ability aside, his first ability is awesome, those spirit tokens are made to chump block. It actually kind of forces the difficult decision of 'if I swing and he chumps, what is he going to draw into?'. Last game I had Ugin in play, those cards were Spark Double and Sheoldred, Whispering One. Add in his removal and he really is multifunctional and good value. I'd say Sorin Markov you wouldn't miss swapping him in.
How have Deliver unto Evil and The Eldest Reborn worked out? They seem reasonable as stop gaps for the times I can't find a blocker. Interested to hear how The Elderspell is working out, too. Seems fairly conditional, but I guess some of the ultimates out there are probably worth it.
The Eldest Reborn has been valuable in some situations. It has never been spectacular but it isn't really here as a game-changing spell. When I got it down, it did enough to earn the spot in the deck by having players sac things and then get back the best Walker in the graveyard. The main issue with the blocking comment is that it is really easy for our opponents to not be affected by the "sac a creature" ability just by having a lot of creatures. I still think it is good, but it won't necessarily turn the game around.
I did have the Elderspell yesterday but I had no Walkers to destroy or any Walkers to put counters onto. It was at a time when I had 2 cards in hand and not much of a board so I can't say too much about it. I think the potential is very high regarding getting off a big ultimate and it helps protect us against opposing Superfriends decks. But, I have never actually cast it yet so it is another that I can't speak too much about.
There's a couple of spots I'm thinking of as flexes (Inspiring Statuary is my big one rn) so I might try The Eldest Reborn and see how it plays out. I think timing is probably key in getting max value from it.