I'm not dead. This thread is getting an update when I have time - still need to pick up more cards (the Phyrexian Tower reprint being a godsend) and restructure the deck. Decided to give up on being tricky with the Discard theme, going for full reanimator now with just a smattering of incidental mill for variety.
Ah, Oloro the bane of my existence. I'm that guy who tracks the life totals, by hand.
Aside from that, can't really say much about him other than he is a classic control commander. Passive lifegain ensures chip damage is meaningless to you. Esper colors means access to an excellent set of options (Tutors, Counterspells, good removal). And in a pinch he does have a card draw stapled onto him (a cheaper version of the new Dawn of Hope from GRN).
Hey, you do what you want to do ultimately. If you think you can make them work, I can't imagine the infrastructure of the deck would change too drastically between Commanders (if you decided to try the Partners over another first).
I like my Commander being an enabler, a payoff, but preferably both. Krav is a payoff for playing into tokens for sure. Regna is the enabler to me. Makes it a nice fit.
Don't get me wrong - I love incremental advantage. But Life gain in EDH doesn't have the best track record as a primary theme, and I don't think Regna's payoff compares to the alternatives (Uncle Karl, Ayli, Oloro, or even Licia, Sanguine Tribune). Kambal, Consul of Allocation may even be the better Commander if that's how you want to build/play the deck, since he can come down early, bleed your opponents, and trigger these effects every turn.
I could be biased as a black player, but Krav having "Sac X, draw X" is just straight better in my opinion than "make 2 dudes", if you decide to go with the Partners. Making tokens to sacrifice is easy. Getting your life gain value engines set up is harder.
Personally, I do intend to build a K&R list sometime in the near future and the pair strikes me as an incredibly powerful engine with sacrifice synergy.
There are plenty of small, easy token enablers that Krav can eat up to refill your hand and keep the war machine running. Combine him with traditional sac payoffs like Black Market, Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebos.
Regna strikes me as the second gear, a backup - just a few pieces of incremental lifegain (Kambal, Consul of Allocation, Polluted Bonds, etc) can keep a Life subtheme up when it directly works with one of your Commanders.
If you manage to get both out, you'd eventually accumulate enough value to just crush the rest of the table I'd suspect. Aside from the obvious synergies they're fairly open-ended as far as actual win-condition is concerned. I was thinking of making them a tutorless combo deck, intent on grinding out my advantage and drawing into my pieces. But yours will depend on your meta, of course.
Kaho isn't Isochron Scepter, though, the spells don't stay imprinted on her - she puts them onto the stack. Unless you mean - bounce/sac/blink her, search out nexus again, repeat... With another two or three pieces in play, it'd work. A convoluted, if fun combo deck.
I'm kind of wanting to play Kaho, Minamo Historian, but have never really been a fan of Mono-Blue. I kinda wish they had made another Legendary with that effect, though multicolored. Maybe Temur?
Kaho has been on my wishlist for some time, just haven't been sure if there's a way to build it aside from Toolbox Politics or DramaticScepter/Paradox Engine.dec. That, and money. Too many decks to build.
If she were anything but monocolored, she'd be a lot more popular, I've no doubt.
I'll second Ruric Thar as being a certified pain in the ass. Even just removing him has an awful cost, so if anyone doesn't have immediate removal, he shuts them out.
But following Calamity's suggestion, If you'd consider Krosan Drover, I don't know why you wouldn't consider Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma.
Sakashima's Self-bounce is EoT. She'd still get shuffled in.
The Polymorph approach sounds like a unique deckbuilding challenge though. That one has my attention. Even if you don't go all-in on Etrata (say, play a few token enablers or additional Poly effects, like Jalira), you can limit the creature targets in your deck to ones supporting your game plan. Just dropping an Eldrazi on turn 3-4 is also pretty good.
I missed Burglar Rat! So many new toys - if I make space for it, I'm getting to the point where I'll need to add Geth's Grimoire. Strangely enough, ever since converting my mill to discard, I haven't actually drawn much of it. I'm going to need a foil playset of Plaguecrafter, because that one is going in most decks I build from now on.
If you don't mind me asking, what is your meta made up of? You've mentioned a Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge player on a few occasions, but I'm not sure what else you go up against.
Have to bring up Grafted Wargear again because it's actually better than either of us expected. The errata for wargear has changed the card to "when this becomes unattached from a permanent, sacrifice that permanent." So, if your opponents make the god with wargear on it into something besides a creature, wargear falls off, you sac. the god, it goes back into your hand at the endstep. It turns Imprisoned in the moon and Song of the Dryads into over costed bounce spells Against darksteel mutation, just attach the wargear to a different creature on your turn to sac. the god. The same actually goes for control magic type effects too. You still control the equipment, so on your next turn your force your opponent to sac. the god.
I understand this may still not be enough to put it over the edge. The more I look at it, the better it gets though. I think wargear still can't dodge Path to exile type effects though, so instant speed sac. outlets are still superior to it in that way.
Was already aware of this interaction. It's an interesting tech choice regardless, and one I need to remind myself of when I get around to building that Valduk, Keeper of the Flame list finally.
As to Venser vs. fatespinner I'd go with fatespinner. Though I suspect that both are probably worth making room for. I've seen fatespinner "win the game" on when played on turn 3 by an opponent. If an opponent can't answer it soon enough, you will win. If they put it into the 'yard through creature destruction, I'd probably get the god out asap and recur him asap. This guy is a beast.
As foretold or phantasmal image both look like good cards to take out in place of these.
Also, burnished hart looks too slow. Thran Dynamo or Worn Powerstone would probably be better. These cards will lead you into playing 2 spells faster than burnished hart. You may need to consider a few more dual-colored lands as well, even if a couple enter tapped. You can usually play a tapped land turn one with no detriment. With all of the cheap creatures, you'll find a spot to drop a tapped land later in the early game too. If you're looking to upgrade, I'd say your mana base could use a little work. Morphic Pool was just printed in battlebond and is cheap $ for what it does. Reflecting pool is a nice one once you get a couple more dual-colored lands. Fetchlands would be good too.
Burnished Hart hasn't steered me wrong, yet. It is slower than either of those, yes, but I prize colored mana above colorless. As a longtime Grixis player, I've been screwed my fair share.
The manabase is something I haven't had any problems with yet, but I was already planning on picking up Morphic Pool and Sunken Ruins, at least. I'm not interested in playing Fetchlands here, because I don't intend to fully optimize the deck - I want an engine of war, hard to deal with, that takes over the game. As I mentioned on your deck, and I need to add to the first post here, I added [Focused] because I wanted a good deck - but able to play with both Optimized lists (the type that might typically have fetches), and Casual lists.
Also, if I had to buy fetches, I'd rather do it for a 3 color deck. It's easy enough to fix in 2 without them, even if they're nice to have.
In past discussions, it sounded like your meta was faster and more powerful. I probably have more time to set up my board before the game gets really interesting. I mean, if you feel the need to hold up counterspells/creature removal on turn 3 or 4 just to get by, I say damn! That does sound like a beastly meta. In my games, no one is doing anything threatening the first few turns, probably just some ramp or some stupid chump creature. Are people cheating in Blightsteel colossus in turn 3 in your meta or what? Do you need to have answers to infinite combos ready? My meta doesn't have any besides mine. In the mid/late game you should have the mana up to be able to play Skyscanner plus a counterspell/removal, so no harm done.
It's a mix of both, I'd say - your meta sounds very battlecrusier and I miss that sometimes. Since there's a large variety of decks in my area, each angling at winning in different ways, I have to expect people to be dishing out real damage or attacking resources by turns 4-8 depending on the deck. Combo is a minority here - but if I get sat down with an Edgar Markov, Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa + Partner or god forbid Animar, Soul of Elements, I need to have enough wipes or early responses to prevent them from reaching critical mass and running me over. Whereas sometimes I may sit down with Atraxa, Praetor's Voice, Keranos, God of Storms, Nicol Bolas, the Ravager, or monoB Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. People like synergy around here, so if any of the new Enchantress Commanders, Inalla, Archmage Ritualist, or Lathliss, Dragon Queen manage to stick any of their key pieces down, the fight gets that much harder. The difference between our metas, I believe, is that tempo is the key factor of mine - whoever manages to accumulate an advantage early on has a better chance to beat their primary threats. Something typically happens every turn (not so much dead space as preparation) - we either ramp, develop our boardstate, or hinder someone else from doing so.
I completely agree that the cantrip creatures are a fun and effective way to utilize The Scarab God. Honest truth: I'm a Grixis player at heart. Everything I ever want to do is in Grixis colors, Dimir being among my favorite. Reanimation, Sacrifice, Control - my bread and butter. I'm on your page as far as why you enjoy where your build is going - it just hasn't quite worked for me. The Scarab God is naturally very powerful because of it's adaptability.
A secondary challenge I face is I want my build Focused, efficient, good even - but I want to be able to play it against more casual decks, hence why I've removed combo and limit tutors. I rather enjoy grinding people out over a few turns, making them watch the God drain their life away in larger chunks each time.
Also, something you might like, because I know I did: a 3rd Fleshbag effect was just spoiled for GRN.
Cruel Reality, huh? Funny card, I've never seen anyone try to play it in Commander here. Except me with a jank pile once, it didn't do anything impressive.
I partially mentioned sacrifice as a theme because I noticed two differences between our lists: You included Skullclamp, but you also have significantly less Instant-Speed interaction (removal/counterspells). Relying on smaller creatures makes sense when you cantrip them, then kill them for additional draw - I found I was using them to help cycle through my deck faster. Seems to be a difference of preference, playstyle, or the people we play with - I realized I never wanted to cast Skyscanner for 3 mana (it felt better to hold up mana to threaten a response). I'm not disagreeing that our God can take trash creatures and make them better - but it doesn't make them any better on their own. I learned from experience with another deck of mine that I tend to get punished for playing too many of the cantrip creatures without doing, or threatening, something.
Guessing you got reminded by the discussion surrounding Etrata, the Silencer? She looks just silly enough for me to build. Crystal Shard and Erratic Portal could work in The Scarab God, but I think you underestimate Deadeye Navigator. While a steep initial cost (or not, if you Eternalize it), the Soulbond allows you to repeat any ETB at your leisure for 1U.
Lazav, the Multifarious seems like something I'd definitely make a casual build of. Love good ol' fashioned trickery like that, though he reminds me very much of a red-less Mairsil, the Pretender. His flexibility with low cmc creatures will be where he shines though - Once you're copying creatures that cost 4+ mana, you may as well be reanimating them in my opinion. Fairly certain Ben was just talking about the card in general, by the way, not as an inclusion for The Scarab God.
Your new build is looking good, JJ. Although maybe you should organize it by card types, then function? It's a pain, but I did it when I updated my list and it makes it look much cleaner.
And I do have to ask how your cantrip creatures have been working out? I almost feel like you should have a Panharmonicon with the number in your list, really. For instance, I thought Skyscanner was a good catch from M19, but I ended up taking it right back out to put other, better suited cards in (or so I felt). 3 mana for a 1/1 with "draw a card" didn't feel too good to me. But if you went all in on the sac, it could make more sense.
Definitely feels more like your build is moving towards combo/control, given your number of tutors and various pieces. Whereas mine shows my bias for straight Control - I want to throttle my opponents and win on my own time.
Also been playing Arena, and MTGO recently.
Aside from that, can't really say much about him other than he is a classic control commander. Passive lifegain ensures chip damage is meaningless to you. Esper colors means access to an excellent set of options (Tutors, Counterspells, good removal). And in a pinch he does have a card draw stapled onto him (a cheaper version of the new Dawn of Hope from GRN).
I like my Commander being an enabler, a payoff, but preferably both. Krav is a payoff for playing into tokens for sure. Regna is the enabler to me. Makes it a nice fit.
I could be biased as a black player, but Krav having "Sac X, draw X" is just straight better in my opinion than "make 2 dudes", if you decide to go with the Partners. Making tokens to sacrifice is easy. Getting your life gain value engines set up is harder.
There are plenty of small, easy token enablers that Krav can eat up to refill your hand and keep the war machine running. Combine him with traditional sac payoffs like Black Market, Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebos.
Regna strikes me as the second gear, a backup - just a few pieces of incremental lifegain (Kambal, Consul of Allocation, Polluted Bonds, etc) can keep a Life subtheme up when it directly works with one of your Commanders.
If you manage to get both out, you'd eventually accumulate enough value to just crush the rest of the table I'd suspect. Aside from the obvious synergies they're fairly open-ended as far as actual win-condition is concerned. I was thinking of making them a tutorless combo deck, intent on grinding out my advantage and drawing into my pieces. But yours will depend on your meta, of course.
You're a sick man. I like you.
Kaho has been on my wishlist for some time, just haven't been sure if there's a way to build it aside from Toolbox Politics or Dramatic Scepter/Paradox Engine.dec. That, and money. Too many decks to build.
If she were anything but monocolored, she'd be a lot more popular, I've no doubt.
I'll second Ruric Thar as being a certified pain in the ass. Even just removing him has an awful cost, so if anyone doesn't have immediate removal, he shuts them out.
But following Calamity's suggestion, If you'd consider Krosan Drover, I don't know why you wouldn't consider Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma.
Sakashima's Self-bounce is EoT. She'd still get shuffled in.
The Polymorph approach sounds like a unique deckbuilding challenge though. That one has my attention. Even if you don't go all-in on Etrata (say, play a few token enablers or additional Poly effects, like Jalira), you can limit the creature targets in your deck to ones supporting your game plan. Just dropping an Eldrazi on turn 3-4 is also pretty good.
If you don't mind me asking, what is your meta made up of? You've mentioned a Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge player on a few occasions, but I'm not sure what else you go up against.
And seeing Saffi reminds me that Loyal Retainers exists.
Was already aware of this interaction. It's an interesting tech choice regardless, and one I need to remind myself of when I get around to building that Valduk, Keeper of the Flame list finally.
Decided to remove the As Foretold and Phantasmal Image for now for those two.
1 Mausoleum Wanderer
2 Mind Stone
2 Phantasmal Image
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
3 As Foretold
2 Soldevi Adnate
3 Spiketail Drakeling
3 Fatespinner
4 Venser, Shaper Savant
7 Rune-Scarred Demon
Burnished Hart hasn't steered me wrong, yet. It is slower than either of those, yes, but I prize colored mana above colorless. As a longtime Grixis player, I've been screwed my fair share.
The manabase is something I haven't had any problems with yet, but I was already planning on picking up Morphic Pool and Sunken Ruins, at least. I'm not interested in playing Fetchlands here, because I don't intend to fully optimize the deck - I want an engine of war, hard to deal with, that takes over the game. As I mentioned on your deck, and I need to add to the first post here, I added [Focused] because I wanted a good deck - but able to play with both Optimized lists (the type that might typically have fetches), and Casual lists.
Also, if I had to buy fetches, I'd rather do it for a 3 color deck. It's easy enough to fix in 2 without them, even if they're nice to have.
It's a mix of both, I'd say - your meta sounds very battlecrusier and I miss that sometimes. Since there's a large variety of decks in my area, each angling at winning in different ways, I have to expect people to be dishing out real damage or attacking resources by turns 4-8 depending on the deck. Combo is a minority here - but if I get sat down with an Edgar Markov, Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa + Partner or god forbid Animar, Soul of Elements, I need to have enough wipes or early responses to prevent them from reaching critical mass and running me over. Whereas sometimes I may sit down with Atraxa, Praetor's Voice, Keranos, God of Storms, Nicol Bolas, the Ravager, or monoB Jace, Vryn's Prodigy. People like synergy around here, so if any of the new Enchantress Commanders, Inalla, Archmage Ritualist, or Lathliss, Dragon Queen manage to stick any of their key pieces down, the fight gets that much harder. The difference between our metas, I believe, is that tempo is the key factor of mine - whoever manages to accumulate an advantage early on has a better chance to beat their primary threats. Something typically happens every turn (not so much dead space as preparation) - we either ramp, develop our boardstate, or hinder someone else from doing so.
I completely agree that the cantrip creatures are a fun and effective way to utilize The Scarab God. Honest truth: I'm a Grixis player at heart. Everything I ever want to do is in Grixis colors, Dimir being among my favorite. Reanimation, Sacrifice, Control - my bread and butter. I'm on your page as far as why you enjoy where your build is going - it just hasn't quite worked for me. The Scarab God is naturally very powerful because of it's adaptability.
A secondary challenge I face is I want my build Focused, efficient, good even - but I want to be able to play it against more casual decks, hence why I've removed combo and limit tutors. I rather enjoy grinding people out over a few turns, making them watch the God drain their life away in larger chunks each time.
Also, something you might like, because I know I did: a 3rd Fleshbag effect was just spoiled for GRN.
I partially mentioned sacrifice as a theme because I noticed two differences between our lists: You included Skullclamp, but you also have significantly less Instant-Speed interaction (removal/counterspells). Relying on smaller creatures makes sense when you cantrip them, then kill them for additional draw - I found I was using them to help cycle through my deck faster. Seems to be a difference of preference, playstyle, or the people we play with - I realized I never wanted to cast Skyscanner for 3 mana (it felt better to hold up mana to threaten a response). I'm not disagreeing that our God can take trash creatures and make them better - but it doesn't make them any better on their own. I learned from experience with another deck of mine that I tend to get punished for playing too many of the cantrip creatures without doing, or threatening, something.
Guessing you got reminded by the discussion surrounding Etrata, the Silencer? She looks just silly enough for me to build. Crystal Shard and Erratic Portal could work in The Scarab God, but I think you underestimate Deadeye Navigator. While a steep initial cost (or not, if you Eternalize it), the Soulbond allows you to repeat any ETB at your leisure for 1U.
Your new build is looking good, JJ. Although maybe you should organize it by card types, then function? It's a pain, but I did it when I updated my list and it makes it look much cleaner.
I am interested in how your sacrifice subtheme will be going with the deck since you only have 4 (Fleshbag Marauder, Merciless Executioner, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, and Altar of Dementia) in the deck. Even just squeezing one into your manabase might be good enough - High Market is easy to obtain, and Phyrexian Tower if you're looking to splurge a bit. I feel like either could easily replace something like Memorial to Genius.
And I do have to ask how your cantrip creatures have been working out? I almost feel like you should have a Panharmonicon with the number in your list, really. For instance, I thought Skyscanner was a good catch from M19, but I ended up taking it right back out to put other, better suited cards in (or so I felt). 3 mana for a 1/1 with "draw a card" didn't feel too good to me. But if you went all in on the sac, it could make more sense.
Definitely feels more like your build is moving towards combo/control, given your number of tutors and various pieces. Whereas mine shows my bias for straight Control - I want to throttle my opponents and win on my own time.