3drinks wrote: ↑4 years ago
Yeah, you don't sac the Orgg right away. You play it like a pseudo hatred and knock someone out. Works well with, say, a high market or phy tower to be able to get that life back when it matters. So between that. The actual hatred, and tainted strike, that's three OHKOs.
I'm trying to find more creatures like Okk.
Veteran Brawlers &
Wanted Scoundrels are another similar one. I keep coming back to
Hidden Horror but that ain't it. I'd like to find something like a
Wayward Swordtooth but not in
G.
When doing the research for the creatures in the deck initially, I basically was just going off trying to find high power stats for mana cost. But what I decided to do today was go through all the Rakdos creatures with converted mana cost 3 or less to see if there was anything that would fit. I mean literally all 2148 of them. The reason for 3cmc and less and not more is...well time, but mainly because I already have lots of 4 cmc creatures and over and wanted to see if I could get better results from less costing creatures.
It was definitely worth it and I feel like I've come away with some more ideas and some changes that could make the deck stronger.
The list of cards is pretty long, so I've broken it down into a few different ideas/themes.
1 converted mana cost
2 converted mana cost
3 converted mana cost
Recursion
Post combat/in play for longer
Artifacts
As I was going through the creatures I did notice a number of power bonuses to creature via artifacts. You could make a build that is centered around more artifacts and then leverage off these creatures instead for your big card draw. The advatanges of this is that you can potentially get much higher payoffs for cost/draw. With equipment also being a factor of potential Greven decks, this can help with the artifact theme.
Discard
Eldrazi
I did notice a few fairly good Eldrazi creatures that could be used. But it's not so much on their own that they would be powerful, but actually if you can combine them with the lands
Eldrazi Temple and
Eye of Ugin.
I've highlighted cards that got me particularly interested.
Chandra's Spitfire
In a multiplayer game, you get the +3/+0 bonus for each opponent who is dealt damage. So if you have cards that can deal damage to each player/opponent then you'll get for example +9/+0 in a 4 player game. Do it twice and that is +18/+0.
You of course need enablers, so I found suitable cards that can also be used as sacrifice outlets for Greven.
Blood Hound
I think has a lot of potential. Now life loss does not result in triggering damage. And actually if you count the ways the deck deals you specifically
damage yourself it's not that many;
Ancient Tomb,
City of Brass,
Sulfurous Springs,
Mana Crypt,
Mana Vault,
Tailsman of Indulgence,
Volcano Hellion.
However it can act as a very defensive card as well, as the counters don't get removed until the end of your turn. Which means if opponents attack you, you'll get the counters and can use it to sacrifice to Greven when your turn comes around.
Of course you can adjust the deck to potentially have more cards that actually deal you
damage to make the card better.
I've normally kept away from too much incidental damage that
doesn't provide card advantages, but with
Blood Hound there is more incentive.
Lands that provide damage seem like the first port of call;
Barbarian Ring,
Cabal Pit,
Tarnished Citadel,
Tomb of Urami.
There are going to be a lot of cards that could slot into the deck that deal additional damage, but I'm going to need to research for that another day.
Lightning Serpent
When you compare
Lightning Serpent to some of the other mana to power efficient creatures it's isn't quite as good for cost for the same amount of mana spent, however the advantage is that it does scale. You could just cast it for one mana, or for all the mana you have if you really wanted to draw more cards.
Given this, I think it might be better than the rigid casting cost of some of the other creatures.
Rage Nimbus
Has crossed my path before, but I don't think that I fully embraced that it is perfectly inline with card draw for mana AND it has a relevant ability. Being able to make an opponents creature attack can be the difference between them not being able to block Greven with his menace.
Slumbering Dragon
This is both cost effective and provide a defensive role in that it's dangerous for your opponents to attack you. The perfect
Ancestral Recall in the deck.
Garza's Assassin
I think you should prioritize this creature over other removal if you are specifically having one-for-one removal. For example I would play this over
Go for the Throat, even though it doesn't hit black creatures, it provides at least small card draw AND recursion AND removal.
Olivia, Mobilized for War
Although it power is not the same heavy hitter has other creatures on offer, the haste element is enticing. Being able to cast it before Greven, allows you to not only give Greven haste, but also a creature to sacrifice to draw 3 cards.
Countryside Crusher
With the right supporting shell the ceiling on the potential power you can get out of this creature is very high.
Given all this I am going to make some changes at least to test. Pretty much I'm lowering the curve of some of the creatures and hopefully not even losing out on higher card draw, in fact I might even gain in some games.
The land changes are specifically to make
Blood Hound more effective.
What I like about these changes is that
Slumbering Dragon and
Blood Hound can provide life buffers for you (not to get attacked) which is an important element of playing Greven as you can get to dangerously low life in instances of not gaining lifelink, etc.
But then they also provide potentially higher upside of draw as well.
Zacama
