Varina, Lich Queen - Esper Zombie Midrange

[toctheyounger]

Hey @toctheyounger Re: Chthonian Nightmare.

Hear me out - would you want to have an animate dead with buyback: sacrifice a creature? If not, that's cool. I want that though!

Oh don't get me wrong, I definitely want to try it. I think it'll do well, even from the perspective of returning to hand, that is something we can use in the context of our commander. I just don't know that it'll be anything more than a value piece. That's still not terrible though.

[CyanideSuicide]

How come I don't see mana confluence or city of brass in most players deck? We already have to much utility land and don't want to flood? Just curious!

[pzbw7z]

How come I don't see mana confluence or city of brass in most players deck? We already have to much utility land and don't want to flood? Just curious!

Mana Confluence is pretty pricey and even City of Brass is not cheap. I just don't have enough copies to go around. I've got fast decks that need them more, or at least I want those decks to have them more. Varina is pretty casual and mid-range so the mana isn't that critical. I should round up another City for Varina, but Mana Confluence is just to expensive right now.

[pokken]

How come I don't see mana confluence or city of brass in most players deck? We already have to much utility land and don't want to flood? Just curious!

My reasons are mostly not optimal but--

- I like more fetch targets for Field of the Dead and Cosmic Intervention shenanigans
- I don't like tracking incremental life loss on every tap
- I like playing more basics to beat non-basic hate (and for Land Tax thanks @Rframpt and also Tithe sometimes)

[Rframpt]

I run Land Tax so I need a good amount of basics to grab with it. Then there is the price for both City of Brass and Mana Confluence and the keeping track of life from those. Mostly it is I don't own either and I am not in a hurry to get them as I think my mana have been pretty good so far.

[CyanideSuicide]

Thank you all that makes sense!

[CyanideSuicide]

If yall were to build a reanimator tribal that focused on combat rather than more aristocrat combo would you still focus on varina? I know this would drop the power level of the deck exponentially just curious. Thanks!

[pokken]

If yall were to build a reanimator tribal that focused on combat rather than more aristocrat combo would you still focus on varina? I know this would drop the power level of the deck exponentially just curious. Thanks!

Raffine for sure. Or possibly tymna and Malcolm or saka

[Rframpt]

Hey guys something I have been wondering about for a decent amount of time is what any of your metas look like?

For my own meta we are usually a group of folks collecting to play high powered casual. Some of the signature decks within the meta is a:
Toxrill, the Corrosive - heavy on the control with a few combos to finish the game
Pantlaza, Sun-Favored Dinos and discover into more Dinos
Atla Palani, Nest Tender combo engine
Bruna, the Fading Light mono-white reanimator angel and humans with lot of fast mana
Sapling of Colfenor golgari life gain into damage.

Just been wondering what you folks are up against in you daily EDH games and how that shapes up your deck building and calls when you play and if it is going to your LGS or if it is a gathering of folks at someones home

[pokken]

Hey guys something I have been wondering about for a decent amount of time is what any of your metas look like?

For my own meta we are usually a group of folks collecting to play high powered casual. Some of the signature decks within the meta is a:
Toxrill, the Corrosive - heavy on the control with a few combos to finish the game
Pantlaza, Sun-Favored Dinos and discover into more Dinos
Atla Palani, Nest Tender combo engine
Bruna, the Fading Light mono-white reanimator angel and humans with lot of fast mana
Sapling of Colfenor golgari life gain into damage.

Just been wondering what you folks are up against in you daily EDH games and how that shapes up your deck building and calls when you play and if it is going to your LGS or if it is a gathering of folks at someones home

I primarily play at the lgs and usually a random number of friends who show up and then we fill in with randoms or spread out. So I'll run into anything from trash to precons to borderline cedh.

I will say the kinda most common archetype is a focused signpost build where someone took a strong ish commander with signposts and built around it in a linear way. I see a lot of these decks. That basically look like somebody built their commander with edhrec and didn't play much interaction.


Most of my friends have insane adhd and so they change decks monthly. Most of them tend toward playing high powered decks with a lot of powerful staples.

[Zed117]

My Varina deck has been performing very well. Thanks all!

[Falkenbach]

Its been a while, wow they actually made a phyrexian altar kinda zombie
I have had some good succes running Knowledge is Power with the cards alone u draw with Varina it can easly give +3/+3.

[yeti1069]

We also got a new tutor zombie at a lower CMC than Sidisi. Grim Servant.

Can't seem to be able to get the image in here.

[pokken]

Zombie tutor seems pretty good.

[yeti1069]

It's just bad right after a board wipe.

[pokken]

It's just bad right after a board wipe.

Even after a wipe it can get entomb or gravecrawler so that's legit. Or land tax or top. Or vamp or etutor. So not a massively bad fail state. Or
Skullclamp.

[Arebennian]

Or Agadeem. This gets lands. Right?

[pzbw7z]

[pokken]

Yeah, I think that card is a slamdunk being able to get lands. I don't want to play many 4 drops but grim tutor on a zombie is stupid.

Pop it in an intuition package with Dread Return and Gravecrawler and it's basically a backup Sevinne's Reclamation (as a way to get Phyrexian Altar) most of the time too.

I'll probably cut Demonic Tutor for it myself. Been trying to play less of that card lately.

[plaganegra]

Now when you mass reanimate you can probably go get another mass reanimate spell or a way to continue a loop or otherwise closeoit the game. Woot! Two incredible zombies in one set? Nice.

[plaganegra]

Hey @toctheyounger Re: Chthonian Nightmare.

Hear me out - would you want to have an animate dead with buyback: sacrifice a creature? If not, that's cool. I want that though!

Oh don't get me wrong, I definitely want to try it. I think it'll do well, even from the perspective of returning to hand, that is something we can use in the context of our commander. I just don't know that it'll be anything more than a value piece. That's still not terrible though.

Being able to get a single combo piece you might be missing (or multiple with enough mana is incredible. To me I see this is a scalable combo engine in this deck because of how well Varina digs into the deck in addition to it being a generically good utility reanimate spell.

[pokken]

With Liliana, Untouched by Death enough mana just equals game over too which is gross.

Chains like... get Lili get culling get songs of the damned get cabal ritual get altar gg type stuff lol.

Definitely a reason to think on culling the weak at least and maaaybe cabal ritual.

--

Generally speaking it seems like you need a sac outlet for Grim Servant to make an actual death chain like this; if your outlet is Ashnod's Altar or Culling the Weak it gets much easier.

Grim Servant for Liliana, Untouched by Death (4)
sacrifice Grim Servant (ideally with Culling the Weak :D)
cast Liliana, Untouched by Death (4)
cast Grim Servant [4] for Phyrexian Altar
cast Phyrexian Altar (3)
sac grim servant for (-1)
cast Grim Servant for Shambling Ghast (4)
make infinite mana with ghast and altar, gg

total mana cost 18, minus whatever you made with an initial sac outlet.

So that's...a lot, but achievable with Crypt of Agadeem and stuff. And potentially having banked some dudes to use Ashnod's Altar to power some of it.

:shrug:

The more I think on this the more I think there's a retool of this deck that's more focused on using Liliana, Untouched by Death - her ability is so strong and so hard to interact with, and goes infinite so easily with so many things.

Kinda funny you can also make an Intuition package with Liliana, Untouched by Death Angel of Indemnity and Grim Servant now :D

-give liliana, you liliana and go off with servant
-give angel, cast it and get Liliana, Untouched by Death
-give servant, servant for Phyrexian Altar and then encore the Angel of Indemnity

Gotta ponder that a little more, might have found the basis for a rebuild :D angel makes zombies so it counts!

[pzbw7z]

With Liliana, Untouched by Death enough mana just equals game over too which is gross.

Chains like... get Lili get culling get songs of the damned get cabal ritual get altar gg type stuff lol.

Definitely a reason to think on culling the weak at least and maaaybe cabal ritual.

I've been giving thought to a fourth ritual myself. Sacrifice is perhaps not good enough with the MV our creatures typically have. Cabal Ritual is probably the right call.

Songs of the Damned has been a rock star for me.

[pokken]

Songs of the Damned has been a rock star for me.

yea, songs is dumb in most versions of this deck. Cabal Ritual is almost surely correct in most shells I think.

[Zed117]

I think I'm gonna test cutting Vengeful dead for Grim Servant. Plague Belcher, Wayward Servant & Corpse Knight already cover plenty of life loss. Yeah Vengeful Dead is fun with Tombstone Stairwell, but that's about it. It's been dead in hand a bit.
Warren Soul Trader is going to be harder to find a spot. Looking at Midnight Reaper right now.