Already posted this over on mtgnexus, but might aswell post it here aswell in case some peole haven't made the transition yet. Or want to stay here regardless. Anyways, here goes:
This is a deck optimized for a pretty high powerlevel casual edh meta, that tries to combat fast combo via hatebears and has the ability to finish the game via a nerfed version of the so called Razakats combo.
I hope to add a lot more things to this thread, but for now I would just like to discuss the deck and hear your suggestions as to how to improve it :grin: .
Overall the deck has a rather low curve at 2,55 average cmc.
Since it's mostly a creature deck, this should help with drawing tons of cards with Tymna the Weaver who I really consider to be the main commander of the deck.
If you want to go a little bit more in depth, here's a short explanation of why I included all of the nonland cards:
Tymna is the card advantage engine of the deck. The fact that she resides in the Command Zone allows us to really take advantage of our creatures and draw a couple of extra cards every turn. It's like having a Phyrexian Arena in the command zone, except it has lifelink and is really 2-3 Phyrexian Arenas.
Sidar Kondo is mostly here to add green tot he deck. He really doesn't do much alone. I guess our hatebears get slightly more difficult to block, but that's not gonna win a game. However, one big advantage he provides is that he makes Tymna even better. Sometimes on a table with lots of creatures Tymna might struggle to draw us enough cards, because we can't attack without being blocked. Sidar Kondo lets our dorks and hatebears strike even those players who think themselves safe.
A way to fight against activated abilities. This is most useful vs Commanders that provide an infinite mana outlet in the command zone, like Thrasios, Tasigur or Oona.
A great way to fight vs control decks and spellslinger strategies. Her tax effect is not nearly as damaging to us, as this deck is mostly creature based.
An easy way to deal with graveyard decks. Every meta has some. The nice thing aboout Ooze is that it can come down early and use up extra mana to grow while hating on a very common strategy.
One oft he games most infamous hatebears. He works wonders vs deckst that play too many high cmc spells. Mostly he's here to protect the board from being cleared while there are tons of valuable dorks and hatebears on it.
It's one oft he best was we available in Abzan to protect the combo this deck is trying to go for. It stops counterspells and will in general prove to be a big annoyance to deckst hat like to play at instant speed.
One of EDH's best hatebears. He can be flashed in as a response to a tutor and hose it, which kinda makes this card similar to a counterspell. Overall it stops a lot of problematic cards and hoses multicolor strategies that rely heavily on fetching.
One ft he best hatebears to combat storm-like decks and spellslinger strategies in general. The body itself is also a pretty decent blocker. It stops things like Bolas's Citadel aswell, which is nice.
Another way to hate on artifacts. The fact that this comes with an added removal for artifacts is gravy on top. This card helps tremendously with slowing down fast artifact based combo decks.
Not actually a hatebear, I know, I know. I put her in this category, because she makes the decks hatebears better. Playing at instant speed is pretty good, especially when what you're plying is answers. Ask any control player. Jokes aside, I'm not sure how well she will work out in the end, but I do like the idea and I want to try it.
A second option to combat graveyard centric decks. If you're in a massively Protean Hulk infected meta, she would also make a solid commander for this kind of deck.
One of the best hatebears ever imo. It shuts down many degenerate combos and synergies while providing a sizable body in the air. Like Phyrexian Revoker, stopping outlet commanders is a big part oft he reason why she's so good.
While it only hits certain cmcs, the low cost and the added uncounterability make it an invalueable tool in dealing with some oft he formats more powerful win conditions.
This is likely the best rate we'll see in a good while for a removal spell this flexible. It can basically destroy anything problematic and is easy to keep open due to ist low cmc.
Another very flexible answer. It can hit lands just like Assassin's Trophy. Giving an opponent a 3/3 is a significant downside in a deck that wants to consistenly deal combat damage to as many opponents as possible, but with Sidar Kondo we can somewhat circumvent this.
Another all-purpose removal spell. It exiles which is nice. I chose to run this over Generous Gift, because I genuinely think the 3/3 will cause problems from time to time. If I'm proven wrong in this by use of Beast Within over time, I might change those two up.
A mass removal spell, that can be used to prevent losses vs wide boardstates. The card is so good, that running it even in a creature deck like this seems correct to me.
Another mana dork, this one also helps with color fixing, which makes it a tiny bit better than the green ones. Later in the game it will also help to draw with Tymna.
Another mana dork, this one also helps with color fixing, which makes it a tiny bit better than the green ones. Later in the game it will also help to draw with Tymna.
Arguably the best mana dork, as it taps for any color we need. It can also block a flying threat, which is always a nice bonus. Since it has no power it unfortunately loses a bit of synergy with Tymna.
Getting a Forest into play shouldn't really be difficult for this deck. At taht point this dork can not only ramp but also fix, which makes it very desirable.
This dork definitly has the most utility stapeled to it. It can simply do a ton of nice stuff. However it's mana dork ability is not exactly the most reliable, as it requires lands in the grave of a player.
An attempt to privide a little bit of extra ramp with great color fixing. I wanted to avoid 3 and 4 mana ramp, as those turns will likely be used to cast the commanders (definity Tymna at least, as she ist he decks engine).
Not something to enable early game plays, but if I draw a ton of cards off of Tymna, a big mana boost in the lategame should help me make proper use of all those cards. I also like that it's the one mana doubler that actually does something the turn it comes down. +1/+1 might not be a huge deal, but this is a creature deck, beating face is at least our plan C.
A creature tutor on a creature. Exactly what this deck wants. Not only can this draw us cards with Tymna, but also convert hatebears that are not needed in any given matchup into those that are important.
Another tutor effect for creatures. Instant speed and tutoring to hand make this spell very good for a deck like this, where acess to s specific creature might mean the difference between winning and losing.
A way to put any creature we need onto the battlefield from the deck. In a pinch this can also serve as a „reanimation" spell, since it can get creatures from graveyards aswell. At X = 10 this can serve as another wincon, but that's not exactly a likely one.
A way to transform any of our hatebears into a bigger one that might fit the given situation better. It's also a way to get out some of the decks bigger creatures quickly.
It's a way to repeatedly change one hatebear to another. That's pretty useful, considering that you won't always draw the exact ones you need. It's also nice that it can turn Sidar Kondo into a part oft he Reveillark/Karmic Guide loop.
A very interesting tutor for a Razakats deck. For just 5 mana you can dump Razaketh into the yard and tutor up a reanimation spell, Solid inclusion imo. Can also work with Elesh Norn, if a token deck is about to go out of control.
One oft he most powerful reanimation targets in the entire game. Razaketh is one of the namesake parts of the Razakats combo, which is partially named after him. He enables powerful tutor chains, that can win the game very very easily.
The other namesake part of the Razakats combo. Ultimately this doens't combo with Razaketh directly, but rather with Animate Dead and it's clones. This is an easy way to enable both an infinite etb/death loop and a way to tutor things up with Razaketh until you run out of life.
A classic reanimation spell. It's great to bring back big threats like Razaketh or Elesh Norn. The debuff in power rarely matters. In combination with Leonin Relic-Warden this can form an infinite etb/death loop.
A clone of Animate Dead with a few small differences. The creature returns with +1/+1 instead of -1/+0, enterst he battlefield tapped and doesn't untap unless we pay some mana. Since most of our reanimation targets have powerful effects and their big stats are mostly secondary, this downside doesn't come up much. Just like Animate Dead this enables an infinite loop with Leonin Relic-Warder.
It reanimates things just like the previous two. However this time we don't have to deal with any debuffs. There's even an additional upside in that Necromancy can be cast like an instant. In that case the creature will only stick around for one turn, but sometimes that's good enough. Like the other two, it also goes infinite with Leonin Relic-Warder.
Not only another way to reanimate our big reanimation targets (Death), but also a great option to reduce the body count needed to go off with Razaketh drastically (Life). If the first Razaketh tutor gets this card, you can from then on sacrifice the lands that were made 1/1s and can in theory go off with only one other creature in play.
Elesh Norn is one of those cards that can swing a game out of nowhere. She severely debuffs our opponents creatures and will shut down certain strategies completely. At the same time the smallish creatures that are in this deck are buffed to a size where closing out a game with only creature beats changes from unlikely to pretty easily doable.
At it's worst, Kramic Guide is an okayish piece of ranimation, but in conjunction with Reveillark it allows the deck to assembe another infinite etb/death loop.
Since most of the deck is at power 2 or less to syngergize with Sidar Kondo, Reveillark is fine on it's own here. However the reason for it's inclusion in the deck ist hat it provides the other half of the infinite loop with Karmic Guide.
A great recursion effect fort hings that aren't necesarily creatures. The fact that it's on a creature does not only help out Tymna, but also enable ist reanimation, which can help diversify what the reanimation suite can do.
The drawing cards part is totally worth the extra mana imo. The proliferate isn't amazing but it is a discard outlet to put something in the GY from your hand.
But it's not like the deck struggles with card draw in the first place.
It's also additional life loss, which imo might be an actual problem. Life and Mana are the two resources the deck is most hungry for.
Seems like a nice finisher, that can go off as early as turn 4, and due to size, is resistant to lots of removal. Thoughts?
My build is heavy in Lingering Souls, Spectral Procession, and Bitterblossom. Almost all my tokens are fliers.
From the looks of it, the forum is actually not dying. Afaik someone ended up buying it and it will keep going
Sephara, Sky's Blade is something we already discussed over in the discord server. We came to the conclusion, that it does not make the deck faster, opens us up to removal and can be easily dead in hand in case of an early boardwipe.
This deck definitely needs Yawgmoth, Thran Physician in its life. A free sac outlet that draws cards and takes out random dorks? That card was a godsend to Chainer decks.
It's possible, but if I'm 100% honest, I'm not so sure about it. Here's why:
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician is just a sac outlet for the most part. Sure, he's a pretty good one, but he also costs 4 mana. I like my sac outlets to be a s cheap as possible, so I can easily fit them in durin big reanimation turns in order to not get completely blown out by a removal spell. Yawgmoth can't do this very well unfortunately. I see myself needing to wait an extra turn to first play him and then only do my stuff on the next turn.
Also his proliferating ability seems mostly useless in the deck.
I guess maybe a build with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed which is also certainly very strong in this deck could make better use of Yawgmoth?
In retrospect I might have been at fault for that, looking through ihs deck I saw that he had to have Grand Architect and Bolas's Citadel in his hand. I ended up exiling his Pili-Pala, since that felt like the most tutoarble wincon he had available with how things were.
Ultimately he won that game with Citadel, but i guess I might not have been able to stop that anyways, since he didn't win with Aetherflux Reservoir (which I would have taken to stop Citadel) but instead had Top and dug for another way to make infinite mana.
He ended up at 5 life, and I had told the rest of the table what was waiting in his hand... One of them still attacked me, bc I had the highest life total, but hey, at least I tried
Personally I hesitate to include too many boardclears in the deck, it often feels like I have the biggest board or at least a creature that I wouldn't want to destroy myself. Oblivion Stone even with fate counters seems incredibly slow.
I'll definitly try out Ugin, the Ineffable. Maybe he's exactly what the deck wants. He does a lot of stuff that is pretty decent for us. Permanent removal is ofc the reason to play him, but making all our artifacts cheaper should provide some nice "ramp" in the later stages of the game. A 4 mana Caged Sun or a 3 mana Gilded Lotus seems pretty strong to me.
His token generation is also nice. Especially since we run a ton of sac outlets anyway and can potentially turn the ability of "make a 2/2" into "draw a card" relatively easily.
I'm currently on the lookout for a deck that has a decent Tron and Amulet Titan matchup. The problem is that I don't really want to play something like Ad Nauseam or Storm...
Upgrading your lands early is the smart thing to do in the long run.
You'll never need more than 2 Godless Shrines, assuming you run enough fetches to get them. The correct number of Silent Clearing has yet to be determined.
Fetches would (depending on your buget) definitly be the best way to take the manabase up a notch. Windswept Heath is still the cheapest one and fetches Shrines and Plains, so its exactly right for the deck.
Another land to consider is definitly Shambling Vent as a 2x or maybe 3x in the right meta. People typically run these in the slot you have your Windbrisk Heights in currently. According to the vast majority of players it's much much better.
If you're looking to specifically beat (-Whack, Auriok Champion seems like a great fit. Fatal Push will aslo help a lot and that is a card you should be running anyways.
Also consider building a sideboard, always nice to adjust to things for g2&3. Especially for a deck like ours that has some very lopsided matchups.
Dark Deal has been interesting so far. Thoughtseize was surprisingly effective in a multiplayer setting. Praetor's Grasp felt a bit underwhelming, turns out stopping only one of many combos that could win the game on the spot was often not enough.
Guys, seeing that this thread is in desperate need of a discord server and as multiple requests came in, I created a starting point to build from.
Here is a link to the discord server:
I will grant admin rights to the most active members is this thread so far, so that I am not the one having all the rights to the server (I don't recall posting anything in this thread, I only follow it to improve my deck from time to time).
What do you guys think of Kaya's Guile? It looks pretty sweet, and I always like when you get value on the cards you play, but I'm not overly sold on it. I'm already playing plenty of exile effects and sweepers, so the the graves are rarely a problem and I already do have Remorseful Cleric thats way easier to abuse then an instant.
The gain 4 life part and the make a 1/1 part are basically irrelevant in commander. What we get in almost all cases is an edict effect that exiles our opponents graves.
That doesn't look terrible on paper, but I don't think that this is really something we need. Plaguecrafter is the far far better edict that can be reanimated and if you really need grave-hate that bad, I think you should look to cheaper and more reliable options.
How many copies of Kaya's Guile should we be playing in the maindeck?
I don't know that I'm going to run any. It doesn't appeal to me. The token is a insignificant bonus and all of the other effects will often be wanted a turn or two earlier.
I'm uncertain about this one tbh.
At first glance I wasn't particularly impressed by the card. I definitly don't think that this is what B/W tokens needed to suddenly become relevant.
On the other hand, I do think that this is almost definitly better than Start // Finish by at least a little bit. So for those of us that run it, I think testing Kaya's Guile could be worth it.
The thing that bothers me about the card is that aside from making a 1/1, all the other modes on this cards seem to be very matchup dependant. Lifegain and Grave-Hate is simply not going to be relevant in a good number of matchups. The edict is a bit more versatile, but I think that 90% of the time this'll just be edict + token, which i guess is not horrible for 3 mana.
It saves us the 3 mana from activating the Finish half of Start // Finish and leaves us with a better token. However it will never make 2 tokens and allow us to race a bit faster (the flying doesn't always matter) or to double block with them.
Lastly, Start // Finish has fallen off as a card. If you're on History of Benalia you're probably not even running it anymore and I don't think I would want to replace any other card in the deck with Kaya's Guile.
Buget restrictions aside, do we just jam 4 of these into our manabase guaranteed?
We have a lot of painful cards like Thoughtseize and Bitterblossom already...The answer is very likely still yes, bc the deck is so starved for card draw, right?
This is a deck optimized for a pretty high powerlevel casual edh meta, that tries to combat fast combo via hatebears and has the ability to finish the game via a nerfed version of the so called Razakats combo.
I hope to add a lot more things to this thread, but for now I would just like to discuss the deck and hear your suggestions as to how to improve it :grin: .
Here's the list sorted by function:
1x Tymna the Weaver
1x Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa
Hatebears (14):
1x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
1x Containment Priest
1x Collector Ouphe
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Gaddock Teeg
1x Grand Abolisher
1x Aven Mindcensor
1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
1x Hushwing Gryff
1x Manglehorn
1x Vivien, Champion of the Wilds
1x Anafenza, the Foremost
1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
Removal (7):
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Abrupt Decay
1x Assassin's Trophy
1x Beast Within
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Anguished Unmaking
1x Utter End
Ramp (12):
1x Sol Ring
1x Deathrite Shaman
1x Birds of Paradise
1x Arbor Elf
1x Avacyn's Pilgrim
1x Elves of Deep Shadow
1x Llanowar Elves
1x Elvish Mystic
1x Fyndhorn Elves
1x Farseek
1x Nature's Lore
1x Mirari's Wake
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Diabolic Intent
1x Fauna Shaman
1x Eladamri's Call
1x Finale of Devastation
1x Eldritch Evolution
1x Birthing Pod
1x Final Parting
Combo Pieces and Wincons (14):
1x Altar of Dementia
1x Blood Artist
1x Zulaport Cutthroat
1x Animate Dead
1x Dance of the Dead
1x Saffi Eriksdotter
1x Leonin Relic-Warder
1x Necromancy
1x Life // Death
1x Reveillark
1x Karmic Guide
1x Sun Titan
1x Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1x Razaketh, the Foulblooded
Other (6):
1x Entomb
1x Viscera Seer
1x Carrion Feeder
1x Reanimate
1x Buried Alive
1x Eternal Witness
Lands (36):
1x Command Tower
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Windswept Heath
1x Marsh Flats
1x Overgrown Tomb
1x Temple Garden
1x Godless Shrine
1x Llanowar Wastes
1x Brushland
1x Caves of Koilos
1x Woodland Cemetery
1x Sunpetal Grove
1x Isolated Chapel
1x Blooming Marsh
1x Razorverge Thicket
1x Concealed Courtyard
1x Exotic Orchard
1x Murmuring Bosk
1x Canopy Vista
1x Scattered Groves
1x Bountiful Promenade
1x Fortified Village
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Bojuka Bog
5x Forest
4x Plains
3x Swamp
If you prefer your decklists sorted by type, here's the link to the tappedout page with exactly that:
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/tymna-sidar-abzan-razakats/
Overall the deck has a rather low curve at 2,55 average cmc.
Since it's mostly a creature deck, this should help with drawing tons of cards with Tymna the Weaver who I really consider to be the main commander of the deck.
If you want to go a little bit more in depth, here's a short explanation of why I included all of the nonland cards:
Tymna the Weaver:
Tymna is the card advantage engine of the deck. The fact that she resides in the Command Zone allows us to really take advantage of our creatures and draw a couple of extra cards every turn. It's like having a Phyrexian Arena in the command zone, except it has lifelink and is really 2-3 Phyrexian Arenas.
Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa:
Sidar Kondo is mostly here to add green tot he deck. He really doesn't do much alone. I guess our hatebears get slightly more difficult to block, but that's not gonna win a game. However, one big advantage he provides is that he makes Tymna even better. Sometimes on a table with lots of creatures Tymna might struggle to draw us enough cards, because we can't attack without being blocked. Sidar Kondo lets our dorks and hatebears strike even those players who think themselves safe.
Phyrexian Revoker:
A way to fight against activated abilities. This is most useful vs Commanders that provide an infinite mana outlet in the command zone, like Thrasios, Tasigur or Oona.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben:
A great way to fight vs control decks and spellslinger strategies. Her tax effect is not nearly as damaging to us, as this deck is mostly creature based.
Containment Priest:
Many people like to cheat big creatures into play in EDH. This card deals with these things effortlessly.
Collector Ouphe:
A Null Rod on a stick. Perfect for artifact infested metas. Puts a full stop to Dramatic Scepeter shenanigans.
Scavenging Ooze:
An easy way to deal with graveyard decks. Every meta has some. The nice thing aboout Ooze is that it can come down early and use up extra mana to grow while hating on a very common strategy.
Gaddock Teeg:
One oft he games most infamous hatebears. He works wonders vs deckst that play too many high cmc spells. Mostly he's here to protect the board from being cleared while there are tons of valuable dorks and hatebears on it.
Grand Abolisher:
It's one oft he best was we available in Abzan to protect the combo this deck is trying to go for. It stops counterspells and will in general prove to be a big annoyance to deckst hat like to play at instant speed.
Aven Mindcensor:
One of EDH's best hatebears. He can be flashed in as a response to a tutor and hose it, which kinda makes this card similar to a counterspell. Overall it stops a lot of problematic cards and hoses multicolor strategies that rely heavily on fetching.
Eidolon of Rhetoric:
One ft he best hatebears to combat storm-like decks and spellslinger strategies in general. The body itself is also a pretty decent blocker. It stops things like Bolas's Citadel aswell, which is nice.
Hushwing Gryff:
A very powerful Hatebear in certain scenarios. The deck does not play that many etb effects itself, so it's easy to break parity on this one.
Manglehorn:
Another way to hate on artifacts. The fact that this comes with an added removal for artifacts is gravy on top. This card helps tremendously with slowing down fast artifact based combo decks.
Vivien, Champion of the Wilds:
Not actually a hatebear, I know, I know. I put her in this category, because she makes the decks hatebears better. Playing at instant speed is pretty good, especially when what you're plying is answers. Ask any control player. Jokes aside, I'm not sure how well she will work out in the end, but I do like the idea and I want to try it.
Anafenza, the Foremost:
A second option to combat graveyard centric decks. If you're in a massively Protean Hulk infected meta, she would also make a solid commander for this kind of deck.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence:
One of the best hatebears ever imo. It shuts down many degenerate combos and synergies while providing a sizable body in the air. Like Phyrexian Revoker, stopping outlet commanders is a big part oft he reason why she's so good.
Swords to Plowshares:
Probably the single most efficient creature removal spell ever printed. A great include to protect what the deck is trying to do.
Abrupt Decay:
While it only hits certain cmcs, the low cost and the added uncounterability make it an invalueable tool in dealing with some oft he formats more powerful win conditions.
Assassin's Trophy:
This is likely the best rate we'll see in a good while for a removal spell this flexible. It can basically destroy anything problematic and is easy to keep open due to ist low cmc.
Anguished Unmaking:
Another very flexible answer. A higher cmc, but a lower downside than Assassin's Trophy.
Beast Within:
Another very flexible answer. It can hit lands just like Assassin's Trophy. Giving an opponent a 3/3 is a significant downside in a deck that wants to consistenly deal combat damage to as many opponents as possible, but with Sidar Kondo we can somewhat circumvent this.
Utter End:
Another all-purpose removal spell. It exiles which is nice. I chose to run this over Generous Gift, because I genuinely think the 3/3 will cause problems from time to time. If I'm proven wrong in this by use of Beast Within over time, I might change those two up.
Toxic Deluge:
A mass removal spell, that can be used to prevent losses vs wide boardstates. The card is so good, that running it even in a creature deck like this seems correct to me.
Sol Ring:
The more affordable of the two big fast mana rocks. An obvious autoinclude.
Elvish Mystic, Llanowar Elves & Fyndhorn Elves:
Great classic mana dorks. They help to establish a board quickly and once they're no longer needed for ramping can draw cards with Tymnas effect.
Avacyn's Pilgrim:
Another mana dork, this one also helps with color fixing, which makes it a tiny bit better than the green ones. Later in the game it will also help to draw with Tymna.
Elves of Deep Shadow:
Another mana dork, this one also helps with color fixing, which makes it a tiny bit better than the green ones. Later in the game it will also help to draw with Tymna.
Birds of Paradise:
Arguably the best mana dork, as it taps for any color we need. It can also block a flying threat, which is always a nice bonus. Since it has no power it unfortunately loses a bit of synergy with Tymna.
Arbor Elf:
Getting a Forest into play shouldn't really be difficult for this deck. At taht point this dork can not only ramp but also fix, which makes it very desirable.
Deathrite Shaman:
This dork definitly has the most utility stapeled to it. It can simply do a ton of nice stuff. However it's mana dork ability is not exactly the most reliable, as it requires lands in the grave of a player.
Farseek:
An attempt to privide a little bit of extra ramp with great color fixing. I wanted to avoid 3 and 4 mana ramp, as those turns will likely be used to cast the commanders (definity Tymna at least, as she ist he decks engine).
Nature's Lore:
Much like Farseek another 2cmc ramp spell. It doesnt fix quite as well, but it can make the land enter untapped, which is a big upside.
Mirari's Wake:
Not something to enable early game plays, but if I draw a ton of cards off of Tymna, a big mana boost in the lategame should help me make proper use of all those cards. I also like that it's the one mana doubler that actually does something the turn it comes down. +1/+1 might not be a huge deal, but this is a creature deck, beating face is at least our plan C.
Vampiric Tutor:
Auto-include tutor in black. It gets us whatever we need at any given point in the game.
Demonic Tutor:
Auto-include tutor in black. It gets us whatever we need at any given point in the game. Tutoring to hand makes this superior to Vampirirc Tutor.
Diabolic Intent:
The deck plays enough creatures to justify running this card as another tutor.
Fauna Shaman:
A creature tutor on a creature. Exactly what this deck wants. Not only can this draw us cards with Tymna, but also convert hatebears that are not needed in any given matchup into those that are important.
Eladamri's Call:
Another tutor effect for creatures. Instant speed and tutoring to hand make this spell very good for a deck like this, where acess to s specific creature might mean the difference between winning and losing.
Finale of Devastation:
A way to put any creature we need onto the battlefield from the deck. In a pinch this can also serve as a „reanimation" spell, since it can get creatures from graveyards aswell. At X = 10 this can serve as another wincon, but that's not exactly a likely one.
Eldritch Evolution:
A way to transform any of our hatebears into a bigger one that might fit the given situation better. It's also a way to get out some of the decks bigger creatures quickly.
Birthing Pod:
It's a way to repeatedly change one hatebear to another. That's pretty useful, considering that you won't always draw the exact ones you need. It's also nice that it can turn Sidar Kondo into a part oft he Reveillark/Karmic Guide loop.
Final Parting:
A very interesting tutor for a Razakats deck. For just 5 mana you can dump Razaketh into the yard and tutor up a reanimation spell, Solid inclusion imo. Can also work with Elesh Norn, if a token deck is about to go out of control.
Razakats:
Razaketh, the Foulblooded:
One oft he most powerful reanimation targets in the entire game. Razaketh is one of the namesake parts of the Razakats combo, which is partially named after him. He enables powerful tutor chains, that can win the game very very easily.
Leonin Relic-Warder:
The other namesake part of the Razakats combo. Ultimately this doens't combo with Razaketh directly, but rather with Animate Dead and it's clones. This is an easy way to enable both an infinite etb/death loop and a way to tutor things up with Razaketh until you run out of life.
Animate Dead:
A classic reanimation spell. It's great to bring back big threats like Razaketh or Elesh Norn. The debuff in power rarely matters. In combination with Leonin Relic-Warden this can form an infinite etb/death loop.
Dance of the Dead:
A clone of Animate Dead with a few small differences. The creature returns with +1/+1 instead of -1/+0, enterst he battlefield tapped and doesn't untap unless we pay some mana. Since most of our reanimation targets have powerful effects and their big stats are mostly secondary, this downside doesn't come up much. Just like Animate Dead this enables an infinite loop with Leonin Relic-Warder.
Necromancy:
It reanimates things just like the previous two. However this time we don't have to deal with any debuffs. There's even an additional upside in that Necromancy can be cast like an instant. In that case the creature will only stick around for one turn, but sometimes that's good enough. Like the other two, it also goes infinite with Leonin Relic-Warder.
Life // Death:
Not only another way to reanimate our big reanimation targets (Death), but also a great option to reduce the body count needed to go off with Razaketh drastically (Life). If the first Razaketh tutor gets this card, you can from then on sacrifice the lands that were made 1/1s and can in theory go off with only one other creature in play.
Loop "Outlets":
Blood Artist :
Wins the game off of any infinite death loop.
Zulaport Cutthroat:
Wins the game off of infinite death loops on your side of the board.
Altar of Dementia:
Serves as a sac outlet. It also allows you to mill out the opponenets if you have a loop assembled.
Beatdown:
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite:
Elesh Norn is one of those cards that can swing a game out of nowhere. She severely debuffs our opponents creatures and will shut down certain strategies completely. At the same time the smallish creatures that are in this deck are buffed to a size where closing out a game with only creature beats changes from unlikely to pretty easily doable.
Other Loops:
Karmic Guide:
At it's worst, Kramic Guide is an okayish piece of ranimation, but in conjunction with Reveillark it allows the deck to assembe another infinite etb/death loop.
Reveillark:
Since most of the deck is at power 2 or less to syngergize with Sidar Kondo, Reveillark is fine on it's own here. However the reason for it's inclusion in the deck ist hat it provides the other half of the infinite loop with Karmic Guide.
Saffi Eriksdotter:
Saffi is nice to have in order to keep the important hatebears alive. However, she also enables another infinite loop with Karmic Guide.
Sun Titan:
Another great value card on ist own. In combination with other cards, like Saffi and a sac outlet it too can form an infinite death/etb loop.
Viscera Seer:
Primarily serves as a sac outlet fort he decks loops. However it can also help the deck scry a bunch, wich can be helpful at times.
Entomb:
The ebst way to get Razaketh into the graveyard. It could also be used to complete any oft he loops with a reanimation spell ready.
Buried Alive:
A bigger, but more risky (grave-hate and higher cmc) version of Entomb.A solid way to assemble a loop.
Eternal Witness:
A great recursion effect fort hings that aren't necesarily creatures. The fact that it's on a creature does not only help out Tymna, but also enable ist reanimation, which can help diversify what the reanimation suite can do.
Reanimate:
A great reanimation spell, that allows the deck to recur it's big creatures for a small cmc.
Carrion Feeder:
Primarily serves as another sac outlet. It growing is nice, but not often utilized.
Alright, with all that covered, I'd love to hear what you think about the deck!
Are there any ways you would change it? Anything I might have missed? Sweet interactions that I should include?
Thanks in advance for your answers, I look forward to reading all of them! :grin:
But it's not like the deck struggles with card draw in the first place.
It's also additional life loss, which imo might be an actual problem. Life and Mana are the two resources the deck is most hungry for.
From the looks of it, the forum is actually not dying. Afaik someone ended up buying it and it will keep going
Sephara, Sky's Blade is something we already discussed over in the discord server. We came to the conclusion, that it does not make the deck faster, opens us up to removal and can be easily dead in hand in case of an early boardwipe.
It's possible, but if I'm 100% honest, I'm not so sure about it. Here's why:
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician is just a sac outlet for the most part. Sure, he's a pretty good one, but he also costs 4 mana. I like my sac outlets to be a s cheap as possible, so I can easily fit them in durin big reanimation turns in order to not get completely blown out by a removal spell. Yawgmoth can't do this very well unfortunately. I see myself needing to wait an extra turn to first play him and then only do my stuff on the next turn.
Also his proliferating ability seems mostly useless in the deck.
I guess maybe a build with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed which is also certainly very strong in this deck could make better use of Yawgmoth?
I think I wouldn't play him for the same reason that I don't play Yahenni, Undying Partisan
Then again I might also be completely wrong on this
Ultimately he won that game with Citadel, but i guess I might not have been able to stop that anyways, since he didn't win with Aetherflux Reservoir (which I would have taken to stop Citadel) but instead had Top and dug for another way to make infinite mana.
He ended up at 5 life, and I had told the rest of the table what was waiting in his hand... One of them still attacked me, bc I had the highest life total, but hey, at least I tried
Personally I hesitate to include too many boardclears in the deck, it often feels like I have the biggest board or at least a creature that I wouldn't want to destroy myself. Oblivion Stone even with fate counters seems incredibly slow.
I'll definitly try out Ugin, the Ineffable. Maybe he's exactly what the deck wants. He does a lot of stuff that is pretty decent for us. Permanent removal is ofc the reason to play him, but making all our artifacts cheaper should provide some nice "ramp" in the later stages of the game. A 4 mana Caged Sun or a 3 mana Gilded Lotus seems pretty strong to me.
His token generation is also nice. Especially since we run a ton of sac outlets anyway and can potentially turn the ability of "make a 2/2" into "draw a card" relatively easily.
Also, Blast Zone should probably be in this deck, don't know why I didn't add it sooner.
I'm not super enthusiastic about any of these, but they are possibilities.
Not sure how well Scales will do with the ever increasing artifact hate in the format (so many Karns lately) tho.
Never played Infect, but I guess it is technically the best option matchup wise.
Devoted Company is something I've treid to play a bit here and there, it's fine, but it also doesn't feel super inspiring
Any ideas?
You'll never need more than 2 Godless Shrines, assuming you run enough fetches to get them. The correct number of Silent Clearing has yet to be determined.
Fetches would (depending on your buget) definitly be the best way to take the manabase up a notch. Windswept Heath is still the cheapest one and fetches Shrines and Plains, so its exactly right for the deck.
Another land to consider is definitly Shambling Vent as a 2x or maybe 3x in the right meta. People typically run these in the slot you have your Windbrisk Heights in currently. According to the vast majority of players it's much much better.
If you're looking to specifically beat (-Whack, Auriok Champion seems like a great fit. Fatal Push will aslo help a lot and that is a card you should be running anyways.
Also consider building a sideboard, always nice to adjust to things for g2&3. Especially for a deck like ours that has some very lopsided matchups.
Get in there guys, let's make this happen!
The gain 4 life part and the make a 1/1 part are basically irrelevant in commander. What we get in almost all cases is an edict effect that exiles our opponents graves.
That doesn't look terrible on paper, but I don't think that this is really something we need. Plaguecrafter is the far far better edict that can be reanimated and if you really need grave-hate that bad, I think you should look to cheaper and more reliable options.
I'm uncertain about this one tbh.
At first glance I wasn't particularly impressed by the card. I definitly don't think that this is what B/W tokens needed to suddenly become relevant.
On the other hand, I do think that this is almost definitly better than Start // Finish by at least a little bit. So for those of us that run it, I think testing Kaya's Guile could be worth it.
The thing that bothers me about the card is that aside from making a 1/1, all the other modes on this cards seem to be very matchup dependant. Lifegain and Grave-Hate is simply not going to be relevant in a good number of matchups. The edict is a bit more versatile, but I think that 90% of the time this'll just be edict + token, which i guess is not horrible for 3 mana.
It saves us the 3 mana from activating the Finish half of Start // Finish and leaves us with a better token. However it will never make 2 tokens and allow us to race a bit faster (the flying doesn't always matter) or to double block with them.
Lastly, Start // Finish has fallen off as a card. If you're on History of Benalia you're probably not even running it anymore and I don't think I would want to replace any other card in the deck with Kaya's Guile.
We have a lot of painful cards like Thoughtseize and Bitterblossom already...The answer is very likely still yes, bc the deck is so starved for card draw, right?