I think I'm understanding more about the social contract part of the local 'casual' players. Win on turn 5 or later, don't go infinite but you can go huge. Don't win out of absolute nowhere, they need to see it coming at least a turn in advance. Don't stop them completely from playing magic with full stax. Control shell with a finite drain 'combo' should fit that bill. Any thoughts?
I agree with a lot of your thoughts. I built this out of cards I had lying around and didn't buy anything for it and it showed. The play testing was really rough. I guess I underestimated the 'casual' decks at my store. When playing my full comp lists against them they're so easy to stop. But with this list I'd have a little bit going on but die on turn 6.
I think I'll have to tune it more to really focus in on control with a big bleeder finish and lower my deck's curve closer to 2. I'll make that room by dropping support for buffing up zombies. Focusing on bleeding will let me run board wipes too.
I'm going to play my list in paper tomorrow at my shop so I've just been goldfishing a bit today, but I finally slimmed it down to 99 cards. My first draft is http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/varina-zomg/ and it seems super fun! I'm just winging it right now so that's exciting.
I started writing a bunch but deleted it. I just realized that I don't actually know:
Is this thread just for toctheyounger77's list?
Or can it be used to discuss any/all Varina esper lists?
drippyCat, it sounds like you have a semi-cEDH list of Varina floating around. I'd love to see it, since I agree that Varina's filtering is the real deal.
Hahaha I don't have a list yet, just research, some pools of cards to brew from, various game plan drafts. I just started brewing her a couple days ago. The ironic thing is, I set out to brew a deck that's specifically FOR FUN and doesn't go for infinite combos. A deck that I can play outside of our tournaments with players newer to the format, or those that are looking to play at a different power than what competes in our events. Right now I don't have anything outside of that top tier power level and I'm finding it really challenging and interesting to evaluate cards differently for this Varina project! I could brew you up my idea of cEDH Varina but it's what I'm trying to avoid :b . It'd be strong, but most likely sub-par compared with other cEDH decks.
I can see how Alhammarret's Archive would be win more if it doesn't win (lower tutor density / not going to combo). Haha I'm remembering how context-dependent everything is in EDH.
Hi toctheyounger77! I made an MTG Salvation account just to comment here Maybe I'm misunderstanding some of your comments but there were two cards in particular that were discussed so far that you dismissed for various reasons, I just wanted some clarification on your thought process.
1) Archfiend of Ifnir You said that you know it's a great card in the right deck (repeatable, asymmetric board wipe) but thought you'd need more cycling to support it. But it also triggers off of discard, and Varina lets you repeatably discard every single turn that she's out and have zombies attacking. That wipes away all opponents' mana dorks, utility creatures, even commanders if you swing w/ like 1-4 zombies. So I don't think you'd need any more cycling at all. So I guess my question is, are you shying away from it because you don't like things relying on having Varina in play? Archfiend does cost more than Citywide Bust or Supreme Verdict. Just curious. It looks like a house of a card to me.
2) Alhammarret's Archive You mentioned it does nothing w/o other card draw, and you'd rather play Rhystic Study. I'm all for Rhystic Study, but again, you have repeatable card draw in the command zone. Even if this particular list doesn't rely on its general, she's always there to turn on Alhammarret's Archive. Say you swing with 3 zombies. Instead of just sculpting hand, now you draw 6 discard 3. That's real, repeatable card draw. Similar to Archfiend, I could see you shying away from it because of the mana cost. But just for some context, my LGS almost exclusively plays cEDH and all of our lists have an average cmc of 1.2 to 2.3. Often the most expensive cards are paradox engine (sure there's Jin-Gitaxias / Razaketh types stuff but that gets cheated into play). Personally, even at 5cmc, I'd still run Alhammarret's Archive in my meta for its absurd power.
Maybe I'm just envisioning a different deck that makes more use of Varina than your list. But these cards don't seem to require extra build around to give absurd advantage. I suppose the difference is that I'm building a more controlling list which could defend Archfiend & Archive, and requires my to draw cards for answer density, & sculpt hand for a combo finish. Another thing that could be biasing me is the life gain from Archive can fuel Ad Nauseam, Necropotence, Razaketh, the Foulblooded, and Aetherflux Reservoir.
I think I'll have to tune it more to really focus in on control with a big bleeder finish and lower my deck's curve closer to 2. I'll make that room by dropping support for buffing up zombies. Focusing on bleeding will let me run board wipes too.
Is this thread just for toctheyounger77's list?
Or can it be used to discuss any/all Varina esper lists?
Hahaha I don't have a list yet, just research, some pools of cards to brew from, various game plan drafts. I just started brewing her a couple days ago. The ironic thing is, I set out to brew a deck that's specifically FOR FUN and doesn't go for infinite combos. A deck that I can play outside of our tournaments with players newer to the format, or those that are looking to play at a different power than what competes in our events. Right now I don't have anything outside of that top tier power level and I'm finding it really challenging and interesting to evaluate cards differently for this Varina project! I could brew you up my idea of cEDH Varina but it's what I'm trying to avoid :b . It'd be strong, but most likely sub-par compared with other cEDH decks.
I can see how Alhammarret's Archive would be win more if it doesn't win (lower tutor density / not going to combo). Haha I'm remembering how context-dependent everything is in EDH.
1) Archfiend of Ifnir You said that you know it's a great card in the right deck (repeatable, asymmetric board wipe) but thought you'd need more cycling to support it. But it also triggers off of discard, and Varina lets you repeatably discard every single turn that she's out and have zombies attacking. That wipes away all opponents' mana dorks, utility creatures, even commanders if you swing w/ like 1-4 zombies. So I don't think you'd need any more cycling at all. So I guess my question is, are you shying away from it because you don't like things relying on having Varina in play? Archfiend does cost more than Citywide Bust or Supreme Verdict. Just curious. It looks like a house of a card to me.
2) Alhammarret's Archive You mentioned it does nothing w/o other card draw, and you'd rather play Rhystic Study. I'm all for Rhystic Study, but again, you have repeatable card draw in the command zone. Even if this particular list doesn't rely on its general, she's always there to turn on Alhammarret's Archive. Say you swing with 3 zombies. Instead of just sculpting hand, now you draw 6 discard 3. That's real, repeatable card draw. Similar to Archfiend, I could see you shying away from it because of the mana cost. But just for some context, my LGS almost exclusively plays cEDH and all of our lists have an average cmc of 1.2 to 2.3. Often the most expensive cards are paradox engine (sure there's Jin-Gitaxias / Razaketh types stuff but that gets cheated into play). Personally, even at 5cmc, I'd still run Alhammarret's Archive in my meta for its absurd power.
Maybe I'm just envisioning a different deck that makes more use of Varina than your list. But these cards don't seem to require extra build around to give absurd advantage. I suppose the difference is that I'm building a more controlling list which could defend Archfiend & Archive, and requires my to draw cards for answer density, & sculpt hand for a combo finish. Another thing that could be biasing me is the life gain from Archive can fuel Ad Nauseam, Necropotence, Razaketh, the Foulblooded, and Aetherflux Reservoir.
Just curious on your thoughts!