Group Think: Gallia of the Endless Dance

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Toshi
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Post by Toshi » 3 years ago

For the last few, special months i've been considering my move from Omnath, Locus of Rage to Gallia of the Endless Dance and with things calming down in my area i decided to go through with it in Paper.

For one i'd like to give some insight on my non-Satyr build, but more importantly, see what everyone else has to say or if there's actually anyone else considering building her as well.

Without further ado, here's my initial list:

Gallia of the Endless Dance

Planeswalker (1)

Approximate Total Cost:

My approach is to get her to trigger ASAP, start punching and hopefully win through something weird like Mercadia's Downfall or Rites of Initiation.
I'm still missing Cavalier of Flame, Noxious Revival and Ohran Frostfang, other than that i'm considering manlands and hate Craterhoof Behemoth with a passion, so don't expect it to show up here.
As for Satyrs, they are really awful - aside from Willow Satyr maybe.

For individual feedback, you can find my own deck thread here: https://www.mtgnexus.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=25639

So, thoughts?

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onering
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Post by onering » 3 years ago

I built her as satyr tribal, and I actually think its worth it to go that route. Her attack trigger is actually really strong, A lot of satyrs become surprisingly relevant when they have +1/+1 and haste, and she's cheap enough that they often will. Besides the stronger changelings like Colossus and Taurean Mauler, you have things like Boon Satyr rolling in as a 5/3 haste turn 3 off Gallia, Irreverent Revelers coming in turn 3 as a 3/3 haste that blows up an artifact, Willow Satyr being hilarious tech that comes in and immediately steals commanders, Voyaging Satyr immediately untapping Cradle, and even the cheap chaff being undercosted hasty creatures that help her trigger. Meanwhile, you get to benefit from strong tribal support cards like Coat of Arms or Shared Animosity that can suddenly turn your satyr army into a lethal alpha strike.

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Post by Mookie » 3 years ago

Even if you dislike Craterhoof Behemoth, I'll call out Márton Stromgald as a discount option. Works well with Key to the City and all the other ways you have to protect him.

I do agree with the direction you've taken otherwise - the strongest part of Gallia is definitely the attack trigger. I suspect that if I were to build the deck myself, I'd lean in and build around it a bit more by running Squee, Goblin Nabob, some more ways to get empty-handed (so I would always discard Squee), and cards like Ghirapur Orrery to benefit from that state. A Goblin Matron / Goblin Recruiter package could also be interesting. Alternatively, phoenixes or madness cards. That build does seem like it would be higher variance / less consistent though.

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Toshi
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Post by Toshi » 3 years ago

onering wrote:
3 years ago
Willow Satyr being hilarious tech that comes in and immediately steals commanders, Voyaging Satyr immediately untapping Cradle, and even the cheap chaff being undercosted hasty creatures that help her trigger. Meanwhile, you get to benefit from strong tribal support cards like Coat of Arms or Shared Animosity that can suddenly turn your satyr army into a lethal alpha strike.
Sure, going Satyr/Changeling Tribal means you get to profit from her static ability, i just don't see it being worth it to include enough of the ~50 mostly underwhelming Satyr/Changeling cards that would support it. Willow Satyr, Voyaging Satyr and Changeling Berserker are by far the 3 best available ones and then there's mostly chaff, unless you want to include potential beefy Vanillas like Boon Satyr, Taurean Mauler and Chameleon Colossus. It's not that i don't want to swing at all, but just in another way. There are 9 cards in my deck, that allow me to get her first trigger on turn 3. If i were to attempt the same in a Tribal build i'd have to include at least several vanilla 1 drops and would be down an additional card. With only 3 ETBs i don't see enough value to abuse Changeling Berserker, Willow Satyr comes with a 40€/$50 price tag, but doesn't really fit my all out aggro approach. Which leaves me with Voyaging Satyr. Without Gaea's Cradle (250€/$350), Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Growing Rites of Itlimoc // Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun there's not much to do, so i'm gonna pass on a 2 drop dork.
Sorry for brushing off your input like that, i'd still like to see your list to draw some inspiration.
Mookie wrote:
3 years ago
I'll call out Márton Stromgald as a discount option. Works well with Key to the City and all the other ways you have to protect him.

Alternatively, phoenixes or madness cards.
Márton Stromgald is a wonderful card! I just fear i'll have to hit one of the 9 protecting options so he doesn't get chump blocked on his very first swing. Pathbreaker Ibex would be more resilient but is a 6 drop without haste. Earthshaker Giant, End-Raze Forerunners and Craterhoof Behemoth are propably the most fail safe options, but d*mn are the bland.

I've looked into Madness, Flashback and the likes, but without access to we're missing out on a lot of goodies. Squee, Goblin Nabob, Basking Rootwalla and Genesis fell just short of being included. If only it weren't for the -random- discard...

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Post by Sinis » 3 years ago

NoNeedToBragoBoutIt wrote:
3 years ago
If only it weren't for the -random- discard...
To be honest, this is what really stopped me from even considering Gallia as a commander.

Gallia feels right, the random discard, the haste, everything makes sense... but, it just adds up to something not quite enough for me. The part of Gallia that calls to me is the reckless test-the-water-with-two-feet nature of random self-discard, but, the payoff just doesn't seem there.

Now, if I were to build Gallia, it would be with other high-risk, high-reward cards (like Final Fortune, Dictate of the Twin Gods). At least if you can't use them right now, you stand a good chance of just chucking them for two cards.

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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

Sinis wrote:
3 years ago
Gallia feels right, the random discard, the haste, everything makes sense... but, it just adds up to something not quite enough for me. The part of Gallia that calls to me is the reckless test-the-water-with-two-feet nature of random self-discard, but, the payoff just doesn't seem there.
It's a 2/2 with haste that gives you +1 card every attack step once it's active (which can easily be T3 even without fast mana), plus a limited kind of card selection...I'm not sure how good a payoff you think you need, but that's a really, really good payoff.

There is some merit to discard synergies (personally I focused on phoenixes for my gallia build) but imo the main thing is just to not have too focused of a game plan. You're playing aggro. Play your on-curve minions and swing for the fences. Nothing is so crucial that it's better than 2 random cards - especially nothing that you can't play this turn. If you have a literal win-the-game-next-turn kind of card, you can always choose not to use Gallia's ability, though that's rarely the right call.

Imo the best way to build Gallia is with a pretty low curve, and as many creatures as possible. If you're playing an answer, it should probably be a creature as well so you never let off the pressure. I also found some planeswalkers to be pretty good since they give you some stickiness through board wipes, and you're already playing heavily to the board so defending them is usually pretty doable.

Looking briefly at the list, imo it's too token focused - but in a small way. You're not running enough meaningful creatures that won't suck post-turn-2, but it doesn't have enough tokens to really go insane with anthems/overruns. You've got discard but not enough synergy to justify it. And then a little random ramp and ramp payoffs that are, again too thin to really work. Too many answers, not enough creatures. This looks to me like a deck that will fail to hit hard enough early, but will quickly run out of gas when it gets outclassed later. I'd ditch the tokens in favor of more meaningful creatures, and cut the answers and focus on aggression. Gallia is really built to go aggro - not ramp, not control, not tokens, and not TOO heavy on the discard synergy (although cards that are already decent and have discard synergy as a bonus, like glint horn bucc, are fine). I don't think you're focusing on what she's good at.

(I realized I kinda used "you" to refer to two people so...hopefully "you" can work out who "you" is at any given time, my b)
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onering
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Post by onering » 3 years ago

Gallia Satyr Tribal

Planeswalkers (2)

Approximate Total Cost:

My deck. I love how much easier it is to import magic online deck lists! This is very much not optimized, but I've still been getting a solid win rate with it. Its fairly aggro, and wants to be attacking early, but if need be it can sit back a bit and then explode for a major turn. Its also pretty resilient, I built it to face down wipes. There's some recursion engines in there, like Temur Sabertooth plus E Witness, that enable me to rebuild in a grindy match. A few Phoenixes, a couple self recursive spells, a few big hitters, and some solid tribal support that can make a relatively non threatening board of satyrs suddenly threaten to hit for lethal.

As I said, its not optimized, and I'm thinking of removing a few cards like Skarrgan Firebird or Masked Admirers that I've rarely cast. There's a sub theme in there of cards that I don't mind discarding, some of which I quite like (Throes of Chaos) and some of which seem to under perform. Some cards that look bad are surprisingly strong. Wild Celebrants seems like limited trash but 5 mana for a 6/4 haste that blows up an artifact is pretty solid, and that's how it plays. Heroes of the Revel plays as a 5 mana 55 with haste that brings along a 2/2 with haste, and now you have enough creatures to trigger Gallia if you attack with them and her.

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