Bump, a year later and I've fiddled around with the deck for a while. For months I actually switched to Tana x Ishai and moving away from big draws because Ishai has the color I want as well as much more direct synergy. (And the ability to outright win games) It's a great combo, and white adds a bit (Jeskai Ascendancy and Cathar's Crusade are absolute star players.) but I felt like adding a color stretched the deck thinner than I'd like, and losing Kydele actually ended up meaning losing a lot more of those explosive turns than I expected. In the end though, I switched back because even if the deck was comparable it just didn't feel as fun.
So now on to what's changed over the year: I caught a lot of cool cards that I realized I missed on my first pass, slowly over time. Some new cards came out, but it's mostly just been cards I've overlooked that really made the difference.
- Berserk: How this wasn't in the deck from day one is surprising, but it absolutely belonged there. A cheap and massive pump spell that ends the game on the spot with things like Overwhelming Stampede, Wild Beastmaster, etc. I'm also not above sacrificing Tana for an explosive turn, because usually that's followed by winning on the next turn.
- Champion of Wits: I've yet to draw it, actually, but it was a new card that just seemed sick and perfect. Draws cards based on power, efficient dude, with the added benefit of recurring late in the game. I need to see it in action.
- Dragonrage: My lord to I love this card. It's so easy to miss, but it's so perfect. It's like a Might of the Masses that I get to spread around, and adding mana means I can use it to cast big pump spells and activate abilities as well. It does exactly everything I want.
- Nissa, Voice of Zendikar: Pumps the team and makes tokens. Really should've been an obvious include. It's one of my all-time favorite planeswalkers.
- Temur Ascendancy: Oh hell yes. Three-drops that grant haste as something this deck badly wants to the point where I've been tempted by Fervor and Hammer of Purphoros, and this is so much better. With any combination of board-pumping effects, tokens trigger this for mass draws giving it two angles of synergy with the deck. I love this card a lot. I mean it grants haste, rewards making lots of big creatures, and draws cards... Another should've-been-obvious.
- Soulblade Djinn: Playing with Jeskai Ascendancy made me realize this deck is overwhelmingly high-impact noncreatures and that adding an anthem to those goes pretty far. The important part of Ascendancy (well the other two parts are insane with Kydele... It's a shame using it means she's not a general) on an evasive body.
- Rishkar's Expertise: A card since printed that's practically designed for this deck. I wish it were reversed so I could freely cast a pump spell to get more value, but for most other decks I suppose this way is better. Card draw based on power and then a free pump spell. (That could come out of the cards you topdeck) I'm trying to trim down top end, but this card is way too insane not to go in on.
- Hall of the Bandit Lord: This card was so hard to muster the nerve to include, but swinging with Tana T4 and tapping with Kydele the turn she drops are too important not to go for it. It's a recent add that needs more testing, but it's probably worth how incredibly painful it is.
Cards going out... Cuts are really hard with this deck, but a few were obvious from testing:
- Ghor-Clan Rampager: I love this card, but you're never going to cast it. It's just a pump spell, and you can do better for the mana. (Also I don't like including things that are just pump spells unless they're massive and efficient like Rubblehulk or Become Immense.)
- Diviner Spirit: Five drops are a hard sell in a deck that wants to be killing players on turns 6 and 7. This dude has no evasion, draws opponents cards too, and has no immediate impact. It was an easy cut.
- Moonveil Dragon: The deck can support triple red, but this just doesn't have the impact that it needs. It eats colored mana and usually needs to untap to get work done. I like it, but five and six drops that don't immediately threaten ending the game or draw a full grip on their own just can't stay in this deck.
- Rapacious One: Very much a pet card, but I have Tana in the command zone for this effect. The colorless mana also really isn't important when Kydele generally makes all the colorless I need. At six it just doesn't pull weight.
- Savage Ventmaw: This was so hard to cut and I'm still not sure if it was right. Six drops kinda need to end the game on the spot, but with haste (and the deck is good at granting that) this dude is free and gives you tons of colored mana to cast pumps and end the game. Might find its way back in at some point.
- Bident of Thassa: Another cut I'm not totally certain of. Bident is good, but we have enough draw effects in the deck and ones based on number of creatures don't work as well as one's based on power. One's based on number of creatures connect have an even harder time pulling weight. Edric is a really efficient dude that comes as another body to trigger it's effect (and incentivizes not attacking you) but Bident just doesn't do quite enough work I think.
- Chain Reaction: and Blasphemous Act: I'm tempted to leave one of these in, but this deck doesn't want to be wrathing the board, it wants to deal with convoluted boardstates by tramping over them with 10/10s. Resetting your board to deal with the opponents' just doesn't get there.
- Arlinn Kord: One of my favorite walkers, but it's just slightly too awkward. I've gotten good work out of it, but it's effects just barely line up wrong. You wanna be using a haste enabler to let you swing with Tana right away, but she costs four so she delays Tana a turn. Against an empty board you want to be able to enable haste next turn if you're casting her, but the only mode that does something right away flips her away from that. She does everything the deck wants, but with timing that's just barely off from how you need the early game to develop, and tempo is way too important in this deck to eat that loss.
I'll update the list in a little bit.
I'm really tempted to turn this into a primer for Tana x Everyone because I have built so many Tana decks and love pairing her with different generals so much. There probably aren't many people out there who have played her as much as I have.
I do agree about Hostage Taker though (and Majestic Myriarch for that matter). These things shouldn't be falling through the cracks.
Myriarch isn't a functional errata, it's just supposed to make the language clearer. Technically as it was it was perfectly valid and functionally identical.
Spy Eye is amazing, another interesting combo is Half-Kitten-Half Rocket there is also the Gnome made engine (its weird Half-Kitten I think is the best thing to apply to hosts)
Half-Squirrel, Half- is arguably even more bonkers considering it applies to all nontoken creatures entering, not just your own.
If the website's down, a fun way to use him could be to make a pile of cards with every planeswalker printed and shuffle 'em up facedown. Choose a loyalty ability on Urza and flip the top card of the pile to have Urza use the corresponding ability on the flipped planeswalker.
Like If I chose Urza's first ability (his +1) and flip a random Chandra, Pyromaster, Urza users her first ability and deals 1 damage to target player and 1 damage to up to one target creature that player controls. That creature can't block this turn.
It's like Momir Basic for planeswalker abilities!
Not only is this a smart way to do Urza sans internet connection, but now I want this to be how he works - it just randomly gives you a "+" or "0" ability from all printed 'walkers if you +1 him, it randomly grants a minus ability if you -1 him, and it randomly ultimates if you -6 him.
Which means whenever I have Urza in play, I'll have Tibalt. And whenever my opponent has Urza in play, they'll have Nicol Bolas.
Tibalt ult is actually really good though and just ends games.
Just a reminder, that if you gain infinite life then get smacked for infinite damage/life loss, your life goes to minus infinity, not wherever it previously was, not zero. By definition, infinity means "increase/decrease without bound", which means you'll get hit so hard your life total won't ever stop decreasing until the game ends.
Man, so, in Unhinged, we had ½, here we have irrational numbers and and ∞.
Now we just need an infinitesimal number to complete the transfinite numbers. i can only imagine what would follow that.
Infinitesimals do not meaningfully exist!
*Grumbles in Mathematician's Cant something about 0.999...=1*
This is the hilltop I will die on, dammit. They are a teaching tool for calculus and worthless in pretty much every other context.
Ah, so here it is finally - the Vanilla Mythic!
Well, ahem, excuse me-
JANK, DIES TO REMOVAL 2/10
...now that we got that stupid comment out of the way. How the hell Matt Tabak sleeps at night knowing that this actually got printed? Either way, love the card. Just wanna use it along cards like Furnace of Rath to deal DOUBLE INFINITE DAMAGE.
Tabak sleeps like a baby because MaRo is the official silver-bordered rules manager. I'm equal parts excited and frustrated by this card as someone with a deep interest in mathematics, which is apparently it working as MaRo intended.
We will need clarification as to whether or not "helmets" qualify as "hats". One could argue that they both cover the head but helmets offer physical protection while hats are usually only for fashion. Of course, is the Suspicious Nanny wearing a hat? How about Ninja?
Okay, let's not split hairs here. The intent of the card is simple:
Would you call a hat when talking about it to someone else in normal conversation? I don't know about you, but I call helmets "helmets" when I'm talking about them. I don't call them hats in colloquial speech.
So is a hard hat a hat or a helmet, despite its intended use being protection?
I mean, a hard hat would be both. It's a sturdy helmet to protect from impacts, but it also rests atop your head. Duh. Bicycle helmets are where we really start splitting hairs.
If you subtract infinity from infinity you get a complete and unresolvable mess unless we strictly define the sorts of infinity we're working with.
We should probably stick to the simplest form of infinity: if k is a positive integer then let x = infinity so that x - k = x regardless of the value of k. The equates to k = 0 regardless of the actual value of k and we can define all instances of "infinity" to have the same value. Thus, the demon couldn't drain the token by -infinity/-infinity (this process increments by integers) but if the token hits you and you have infinite life then you die since x - x = 0.
In general, though, it is true that there are several types of infinities and some of them are more infinite than others.
And some are more mind-numbingly convoluted than others!
I have Kuro, Pitlord and infinite life. My opponent has infinite/infinite Miming Slime token. Can I pay infinite-X life to make it X/X? I am bad at math.
If you subtract infinity from infinity, you get infinity. So the slime will always be an infinite/infinite no matter how much life you pay to Kuro. Of course, your life total will remain infinite too, no matter how much you pay. Your life total will also remain infinite if the slime were to hit you for the same reason....
If you subtract infinity from infinity you get a complete and unresolvable mess unless we strictly define the sorts of infinity we're working with.
I was just riffing on the theme; I didn't intend to say "This is what you should do". It was more personal musings than advice.
As for not fitting rigidly into shard themes, Wargate and Lavalache didn't directly do so either, so I didn't feel constrained to that. I get that if that's the aim only really one or two of my cards are a good fit.
Dude - the reminder text is golden (and it's not the first card in the set with great reminder text - I'm looking at you Ninja). Never thought I'd see a card that had to remind you not to hit other people/players.
You can tell that both of those flavor texts are dripping with sarcasm and I absolutely love it.
- Berserk: How this wasn't in the deck from day one is surprising, but it absolutely belonged there. A cheap and massive pump spell that ends the game on the spot with things like Overwhelming Stampede, Wild Beastmaster, etc. I'm also not above sacrificing Tana for an explosive turn, because usually that's followed by winning on the next turn.
- Champion of Wits: I've yet to draw it, actually, but it was a new card that just seemed sick and perfect. Draws cards based on power, efficient dude, with the added benefit of recurring late in the game. I need to see it in action.
- Dragonrage: My lord to I love this card. It's so easy to miss, but it's so perfect. It's like a Might of the Masses that I get to spread around, and adding mana means I can use it to cast big pump spells and activate abilities as well. It does exactly everything I want.
- Nissa, Voice of Zendikar: Pumps the team and makes tokens. Really should've been an obvious include. It's one of my all-time favorite planeswalkers.
- Temur Ascendancy: Oh hell yes. Three-drops that grant haste as something this deck badly wants to the point where I've been tempted by Fervor and Hammer of Purphoros, and this is so much better. With any combination of board-pumping effects, tokens trigger this for mass draws giving it two angles of synergy with the deck. I love this card a lot. I mean it grants haste, rewards making lots of big creatures, and draws cards... Another should've-been-obvious.
- Soulblade Djinn: Playing with Jeskai Ascendancy made me realize this deck is overwhelmingly high-impact noncreatures and that adding an anthem to those goes pretty far. The important part of Ascendancy (well the other two parts are insane with Kydele... It's a shame using it means she's not a general) on an evasive body.
- Rishkar's Expertise: A card since printed that's practically designed for this deck. I wish it were reversed so I could freely cast a pump spell to get more value, but for most other decks I suppose this way is better. Card draw based on power and then a free pump spell. (That could come out of the cards you topdeck) I'm trying to trim down top end, but this card is way too insane not to go in on.
- Hall of the Bandit Lord: This card was so hard to muster the nerve to include, but swinging with Tana T4 and tapping with Kydele the turn she drops are too important not to go for it. It's a recent add that needs more testing, but it's probably worth how incredibly painful it is.
Cards going out... Cuts are really hard with this deck, but a few were obvious from testing:
- Ghor-Clan Rampager: I love this card, but you're never going to cast it. It's just a pump spell, and you can do better for the mana. (Also I don't like including things that are just pump spells unless they're massive and efficient like Rubblehulk or Become Immense.)
- Diviner Spirit: Five drops are a hard sell in a deck that wants to be killing players on turns 6 and 7. This dude has no evasion, draws opponents cards too, and has no immediate impact. It was an easy cut.
- Moonveil Dragon: The deck can support triple red, but this just doesn't have the impact that it needs. It eats colored mana and usually needs to untap to get work done. I like it, but five and six drops that don't immediately threaten ending the game or draw a full grip on their own just can't stay in this deck.
- Rapacious One: Very much a pet card, but I have Tana in the command zone for this effect. The colorless mana also really isn't important when Kydele generally makes all the colorless I need. At six it just doesn't pull weight.
- Savage Ventmaw: This was so hard to cut and I'm still not sure if it was right. Six drops kinda need to end the game on the spot, but with haste (and the deck is good at granting that) this dude is free and gives you tons of colored mana to cast pumps and end the game. Might find its way back in at some point.
- Bident of Thassa: Another cut I'm not totally certain of. Bident is good, but we have enough draw effects in the deck and ones based on number of creatures don't work as well as one's based on power. One's based on number of creatures connect have an even harder time pulling weight. Edric is a really efficient dude that comes as another body to trigger it's effect (and incentivizes not attacking you) but Bident just doesn't do quite enough work I think.
- Chain Reaction: and Blasphemous Act: I'm tempted to leave one of these in, but this deck doesn't want to be wrathing the board, it wants to deal with convoluted boardstates by tramping over them with 10/10s. Resetting your board to deal with the opponents' just doesn't get there.
- Arlinn Kord: One of my favorite walkers, but it's just slightly too awkward. I've gotten good work out of it, but it's effects just barely line up wrong. You wanna be using a haste enabler to let you swing with Tana right away, but she costs four so she delays Tana a turn. Against an empty board you want to be able to enable haste next turn if you're casting her, but the only mode that does something right away flips her away from that. She does everything the deck wants, but with timing that's just barely off from how you need the early game to develop, and tempo is way too important in this deck to eat that loss.
I'll update the list in a little bit.
I'm really tempted to turn this into a primer for Tana x Everyone because I have built so many Tana decks and love pairing her with different generals so much. There probably aren't many people out there who have played her as much as I have.
Myriarch isn't a functional errata, it's just supposed to make the language clearer. Technically as it was it was perfectly valid and functionally identical.
Actually according to MaRo's "Official Blogatog Errata" it can be, and considering that MaRo is the un-rules manager...
Half-Squirrel, Half- is arguably even more bonkers considering it applies to all nontoken creatures entering, not just your own.
Tibalt ult is actually really good though and just ends games.
That's not how infinite candinalities work.
Infinitesimals do not meaningfully exist!
*Grumbles in Mathematician's Cant something about 0.999...=1*
This is the hilltop I will die on, dammit. They are a teaching tool for calculus and worthless in pretty much every other context.
Tabak sleeps like a baby because MaRo is the official silver-bordered rules manager. I'm equal parts excited and frustrated by this card as someone with a deep interest in mathematics, which is apparently it working as MaRo intended.
I mean, a hard hat would be both. It's a sturdy helmet to protect from impacts, but it also rests atop your head. Duh. Bicycle helmets are where we really start splitting hairs.
And some are more mind-numbingly convoluted than others!
That's because it's the only reasonable assessment there is. Pi is a silly, impractical number that should burn for all of eternity.
I mean, it's also irrational since all transcendental numbers have to be. This way they get a bonus pun out of the deal.
If you subtract infinity from infinity you get a complete and unresolvable mess unless we strictly define the sorts of infinity we're working with.
As for not fitting rigidly into shard themes, Wargate and Lavalache didn't directly do so either, so I didn't feel constrained to that. I get that if that's the aim only really one or two of my cards are a good fit.
"Hey, gimme five!"
You can tell that both of those flavor texts are dripping with sarcasm and I absolutely love it.
I see no reason why it wouldn't stack.