Ghired, Conclave Exile - Triple Dipping Naya Lards

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

Thanks for the thoughts! Some good directions suggested here.

Don't forget that Ghired's populated tokens don't get to have haste (unless the original token that got copied has it). As such, you populate your Combat Celebrant, you exert your original one, stuff untaps. You go into the next combat, and you can't swing with the new one to continue this adventure unless haste. As such, file this under cute but situational, as only half of the copiers create tokens with haste stapled on, plus the whole combat protection thing. Aurelia comes with haste and wings, making her a better fit. You can probably tell I am currently focusing on making the deck as consistent as possible. Still a thing to keep in mind.

Godo's a fantastic and entirely valid include. Thing is, I know how I roll - I try to pilot optimally, I'd just get Helm of the Host out with him each game and everyone would hate it. Being a one-card infinite is kind of dumb. That said, the one-card infinite requires eleven mana, which the deck is not super good at getting. I'm not running Genesis Wave as I wouldn't feel comfortable popping it for anything less than the 11 this would require, and the same mana production principles apply here. Maybe having Godo around and killable for a full turn cycle would make this okay? I'll have to check with my group.

You're not the first to suggest Greater Good, I should probably jam it in. I'm not super stoked about having to chomp a Rhino for net +1 card (albeit with more selection), but your point about repurposing disposable bodies is something that's transferable from my Pod logic. I'll give it some more thought, play a few games, imagine I have this thing out and evaluate what it could eat and when. It's probably correct to include.

Sundial of the Infinite was around in the deck for a while, and it never really felt that great. Since then, I've added one card that benefits from it (Blade of Selves), but I can't imagine it'll suddenly change everything. Sundial literally ends combat to prevent your guys from dying, so they end up tapped (unlike Reconnaissance) and without whatever symbolic impact they may have otherwise had on the fight (unlike Iroas and whatnot else). It's possible I'm being too harsh here, but it just always felt very underwhelming in comparison to the other combat protection options, and the potential spicy tech aspect of it rarely came online.

Yeah, Dual Nature doesn't feel like the best of ideas here. Giving everybody twice the board for no effort is quite scary.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

26.10.2019 Change


As expected, the group reacted poorly to the perspective of Godo. As such, I won't be pursuing that option. However, the more I think about Greater Good, the more it needs to be in here. Time to fix that.

26.10.2019 Change
Approximate Total Cost:

You know what's cool about Greater Good? It doesn't care what's happening with the creature at the time. You can use it to hoover up a doomed Rhino that just got populated into fisticuffs with a Terastodon, and you still go four deep looking for outs. Sure, you have to pitch three afterwards, but that's still four deep that you went for in search of whatever you need. I think I focused too much on the discard aspect of the card and ignored the card selection. Bonus points for cleaning up various temporary tokens, like darrenhabib mentioned. Oh yeah, and this also brings me back up to ten draw options, which makes me happy.

Cavalier of Dawn is good, but I've been complaining that Avenger of Zendikar is too slow for the deck. I've been spitballing offing Beast Within variants because they're too costly. And through all this, a five-mana piece of spot removal survived on the sheer promise of situational death payoff, being a tutor silver bullet and general clone friendliness? The Cavalier's never been particularly shabby, but he's sat in hand more often than coming out onto the field. That's never a good sign.

I've been eyeballing Bramble Sovereign with a bit of scepticism recently. The fact you have to front two extra mana the turn you set down the beefslab that you desire to copy turns out to be a nontrivial tempo hit. That said, I'm probably jumping the gun a bit here.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

Huh, has it really been three months since I last updated the deck?

I don't think there's a ton I can do to make the list run smoother at this point. For the deck to "pop off", it needs to locate a nice piece of fat to clone, a copy outlet, and probably something to help the army be effective in combat. That's three distinct modules, all needing to be encountered in the early turns of the game. Oh yeah and there's also ramp to help accelerate this, and draw so that you don't get left in the dust when you get wiped. That's a lot of constituents that should all be around, and no matter what I do it's not going to be easy to guarantee. The list tends to feature strong representatives in each category, and there's no magical wand I can flick at this to resolve this conceptual modularity. This becomes doubly troublesome when combined with the list's aggro nature. If the pieces don't come together quickly, Ghired's gonna get left in the dust, value-wise. Bummer.

The deck is not in danger of death, mind you. It's fun to copy fat stuff, and it's nice to have a lower power, high variance build to bust out. I may sound bitter talking about its modularity and whatnot, but that's because I'm not accustomed to running decks requiring this much setup. The list feels like there's still a large margin for improvement whenever the pieces fail to come together, when in fact there doesn't seem to be. The most reliable way to boost performance would be to go for even more tutoring - the deck's missing Worldly Tutor and Green Sun's Zenith. I'm not sure I want to do that though, I already have five of those suckers in here.

This post is motivated by the release of THB. To no real surprise, there's nothing in there that merits serious consideration for the deck. Funnily enough, the most tempting options live in the theme booster exclusives, but are still not that close. Terror of Mount Velus is hindered by its seven mana cost, falling short in a direct comparison with Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. On similar grounds, the already excluded Wurmcoil Engine is more relevant than Grasping Giant. Red got some interesting things in the set, like Underworld Breach and Tectonic Giant, but nothing that merits serious consideration in a build with both white and green available. Green specifically, to be honest, due to its draw and recursion. Silly R&D.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

29.03.2020 Changes


Woop woop, self-isolation intensifies. My entire EDH group is responsibly in hiding by now, and lonesomeness is no slouch, so we've been getting Cockatrice games in pretty regularly to keep each other company. It does seem to be working, so there's that. I've played Rhino Man for a disproportionate number of those games, as he's the openly casual deck where I have no real aspirations to win and it's just about the socialising. What can I say, turning fat stuff sideways can be fun. I've been gestating on some changes for a while now, and now feel I've gotten enough time in with the deck again to act on them.

29.03.2020 Changes
Approximate Total Cost:

At some point, I figured out there's the option of curving ramp spells 1 → 3 → 5. 2 CMC land ramp does not play into this chain of events, given the guaranteed next-turn 5 off a Cultivate variant or potential for subsequent copying if you have legs, so I shaved out all the Nature's Lores and whatnot for Arbor Elf and one-drop land aura friends for a while. I did not really like the change, the deck felt more temperamental in its ramp due to the land auras being a lot less flexible in their returns than the two-drop land ramp spells. Plus, we're ultimately not that fast, the deck's not guaranteed to win on 5 anyway. As such, the idea got buried and the stable land ramp got reinstated.

However, some time away from the deck made me realise that the secondary populate just isn't that great, even when it's the best possible options. Sometimes it does stuff, but that technically holds true about most possible includes in most possible decks. I mention a Daxos game in that primer where I'd repeatedly Debtors' Knell plus Attrition someone's Mindslicer to keep a Jin Gitface deck in check, but neither of those cards survived in the 99 up to now. There's been a lot of streamlining in the prior updates, essentially slimming down the deck to the three primary modules plus draw, ramp, interaction and token doubling seems about as good as it can get.

The slots go to more ramp. The curve's still heavy-set and will remain that way, so the only way to help things run smoother is power out more mana to feed into cards. I'm honestly not sure how I forgot about Search for Tomorrow until now, and the deck likes its Cultivates so it gets a third one in Nissa's Pilgrimage. The forest-only nature is okay, the deck's half green anyway.

Thumbing through the discussion in the thread, Sundial of the Infinite is something to keep in mind for reintroduction. Archangel of Thune plus Blade of Selves has been a favourite around these parts recently, that might be the final push that was needed for the consideration. I'm also not sure why I never followed up on Selvala's Stampede. We'll see how this pans out. I'm quite happy with how this runs these days, but that might be a result of me taking performance pressure off the deck.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

IKO/C20 Change


Who could have foreseen that a plane centred on gigantic monsters would bring something nice for a Naya deck that's all about big beef? :P For what it's worth, it wasn't a given, as the beatsticks require good scaling when copied. Still, if something great was gonna show up it wouldn't be that surprising if it were here. And it did! Not a moment too soon either - I was itching for an extra beater for a while now, and this one delivers to the point of becoming a featured card image in the primer.

IKO/C20 Change
Approximate Total Cost:

Quartzwood Crasher may have honestly become my favourite beatstick in this list. It's just such a wonderfully versatile and complex card while putting in the numbers. Even when there is no copier around, he acts as a catalyst for a large tramply Dinosaur to appear (thank Rhinos for being tramply!), which can then be populated by Ghired, leading to larger Dinosaurs in return, and so on in this fashion. Sometimes it might be correct to not just dogpile with all the trample into one poor soul, as the bodies come in untapped and can work as blockers. Punch multiple people with trample, multiple (smaller) dinos pop out. Balancing the need for anti-crackback board presence with individual token size is a very fun thing to do, and adds a surprising amount of depth to this seemingly mindless slab of trample beef. Of course, all this fun amplifies if the Crasher gets copied. Or is it even correct to copy the Crasher - maybe the immediate damage from just making more of the largest Dinosaur is correct? Complexity!

In order to try to quantify the impact of Crasher relative to the other beatsticks, I computed some damage totals in two simple scenarios. Ghired comes out, then the beatstick comes out while Ghired swings and makes a Rhino. And then...
  • Kiki comes out. The beatstick gets copied and subsequently populated by Ghired. This Kiki copy/Ghired populate continues in future combats.
  • No copying is around. Ghired continues populating Rhinos. The beatstick goes into the red zone, un-copied, and does what it can.
This is repeated for three combats, tallying the damage brought to the table by the beatstick's presence. Thunderfoot Baloth gets to have a turn zero figure as it pumps the team immediately. Without further ado, the numbers!

"Image"

As you can see, not only does Crasher scale pretty darn respectably when just straight up copied without any depth, overtaking the exponential returns Pathbreaker Ibex at a point, he cleans up house in the un-copied department while most other beaters just fritter around with medium impact. It should be noted that this simulation scenario is not unrealistic, and was inspired by the fact I had gotten the three 34/34 tramplers out of the Crasher (the outcome of the first red point on the left graph, leading into a triumphant punch in the second point) multiple times. However, it is pretty minimal and doesn't account for more built up board states or quality of life benefits of things like Archangel of Thune/Thunderfoot Baloth doing board-wide pump. Plus, even the crummy little Archangel ramp-up that's trailing near the bottom of the left graph is still pretty capable of ending the game. Nine +1/+1 counters dispensed onto everything are pretty good. Turns out all this scaling, even if relatively less crazy than its competitors, is still pretty good at trying to take out 120 life of opponents.

The Garruk's Packleader cut is unfortunate, as I've sung the card's praises in thread before, but it would have to be one of the more expensive (ergo clunky) utility pieces. It was between this, Doubling Season and Flamerush Rider. This might not be the correct call, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Packleader return at some point. Possibly over the rarely used panic button Wheel of Fortune?

The sets featured a surprising number of other considerations, some being pretty near misses, for the list:
  • Footfall Crater feels like it has no opportunity cost due to the nearly free cycling and super cheap deployment cost. However, I wasn't a fan of the tap-to-haste lands back when I experimented with them, finding them too pricey. The ramp's probably better now, and this only taps itself without needing any extra outside mana, but the similarities are still there.
  • Flawless Maneuver - A free indestructibility shield seems like a slam dunk in a creature deck like this. However, all the other options seem to be doing things better. Teferi's Protection is just crazy versatile, Heroic Intervention's hexproof has come in handy, Selfless Spirit responds to Chord of Calling, and Avacyn is just a sturdy continuous effect.
  • Bonder's Enclave - The deck is quite needy with regards to various colour pips, and carving out slots for colourless lands takes a hell of a colourless land. This doesn't quite get there, but it's cute.
  • Luminous Broodmoth - Likely my favourite card in the set, it unfortunately doesn't do anything to protect token hordes from going poof once they hit the graveyard.
  • Molten Echoes - The creature type clause does not interact favourably with the very varied beatstick assortment.
 
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

06.05.2020 Changes


Near-daily lockdown EDH continues, and Ghired continues seeing loads of play. The deck's fun to pilot, and sometimes allows for interesting line sculpting to try to break through with a win. Just had a somewhat nontrivial board state where I was gearing up for a Vigor Blasph Act steal, all while being mindful of a guy sitting on a public knowledge Saving Grace and another one with Phyrexian Unlife and Soul Conduit in play. I hatch a master plan - respond to the inevitable Grace by blowing up the Wall of Hope he'd put it on, attack, kill some number of people, and in main two Eladamri's Call for Duergar Hedge-Mage to kill the Unlife. I pop the Act and to my surprise Grace guy picks his board up and bins it. Turns out he didn't have white up, a fact that I missed. I realise I have just about exactsies on the board, so I spread the swingers out and send an extra one at Unlife as I realise he's sitting on a revved up Font of Agonies. To my surprise, Unlife chooses to pop a swinger going at Intet to save him. I foolishly take out the Unlife, likely still somewhat tunnel visioned from the earlier plan. Intet untaps with his five cards in hand and 20 lands on the field, drops an Avenger and a Temur Ascendancy and I scoop it up. I should have left Grace guy up, as he'd be unlikely to take me down in his turn. However, the perspective of exactsies and various other factors clouding my judgment led me to miss this call. Live and learn.

Here's a little bit of shuffling around in the ramp and tutoring departments.

06.05.2020 Changes
Approximate Total Cost:

Quartzwood Crasher has been every bit as dominant as expected. Offering increasing pressure even without a copy makes it a stellar early drop, helping the deck start revving even if getting a complete setup eludes it. Plus as shown in the last post's plots, it's still a house if it gets cloned. Idle wondering made me realise Green Sun's Zenith sees him for minimal overhead, along with a variety of other cool things (draw, pseudo-evasion, copying). In it goes, over Birthing Pod. Pod does do okay things, but slowly and once you're already somewhat set up. Feeding it temporary Twinflame tokens is cool and all, but if you've got a nice Twinflame token to shift into something else you're probably doing somewhat okay in all honesty. So keeping it for that makes little sense.

While braving a Cockatrice pub with Feather, I came across a Ghired slinging fellow who proceeded to guzzle all my rocks with Aura Shards, leaving me with two lands as my planned Path to Exile turned multi-Rampant Growth plan went to hell the moment Kiki landed. I handled it unglamorously, but we got talking after the game and it turns out that he was influenced by this thread and adapted the deck for a no punches pulled playgroup. Nice to know that my scribbles actually do stuff, and now we get to bounce various Ghired ideas off each other, which is great. He sold me on Selvala, which I tried out and liked. I jam her in all my other Gx decks, which admittedly go taller than this does, but she still does fine here. The Somberwald Sage tier mana boost off a single Rhino is already pretty decent, and felt similar to good Gaea's Cradle test games around the time of the first post-Ghired play while coming with less brick potential. Plus the returns just keep growing if the board gets to beef up. Oh yeah, and while beefing up, extra cards might trickle in as a nice perk. I like that, more draw is always nice, even if it's situational. Stripping out Nissa's Pilgrimage as the least good three drop ramp spell. While upping my dork quota to two is suboptimal from a "stuff not dying to wipes" angle, I've successfully ran both Selvala and Joraga Treespeaker in other decks. Their returns make the risk feel worth it.
 
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Post by yeti1069 » 3 years ago

Had a couple of games recently where Hate Mirage did some serious work. In this last one, it copied Muldrotha and Azusa, and I populated Muldrotha to have access to my yard for a few turns. Later, I got it back with an Eternal Witness to copy a Marit Lage token and Teysa Karlov while at 7 life to put some time back on the clock.

My experience with it has been one of the following:
--someone has better creatures than I do, and copying 2, populating 1 is big value, or
--there are a couple of valuable ETB effects to take advantage of, or
--I don't have a better play at the moment and there are some decent targets, or
--there are no good targets, and I generally feel okay, because that means I'm doing well


I'm still running Trostani and Selesnaya Eulogist, and have found them to both be valuable for the instant speed populate ability, and, in the Eulogist's case, especially for the repeatability of the effect. Had one game with a lot of mana where I played a Kalonia Hydra with Battledriver and Flameshadow in play, copied the Hydra on ETB, then spent all of my mana making more hasty copies to end up swinging for about 8000 damage to close out a game. Eulogist is stronger here for that effect due to the repeatability, and the graveyard hate effect has been relevant in nearly every game its shown up, but Trostani's lifegain has been a life saver (pun intended) on several occasions. That said, I'm not currently running Archangel of Thune (it's pricey $$).

I've also been trying out Dualcaster Mage, which I've only gotten to use effectively once, but it was strong in that case, as I had out ways to copy it and populate it to keep copies coming for a few turns.

Oh, and Regal Behemoth is hilarious with copies! Had a couple of games where I had to do some math to figure out how many copies results in less mana produced with the land available (I believe I was at 7 copies yields less mana than 6 due to having to tap another land).

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Post by yeti1069 » 3 years ago

Any thoughts on non-combat/damage wincons that would fit here? Last night's game became unwinable for this deck, because Muldrotha had Constant Mists, and instant-speed access to Glacial Chasm. Have also seen other decks running effects that make attacking difficult/impossible.

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Post by BeneTleilax » 3 years ago

shaman of forgotten ways

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

Nice to see you again :) Hopefully you're holding up okay in this strange time.

There's room for various meta includes in any deck. In my group, the most impressive stuff I could get off Hate Mirage would be RGmnath or something, so not that useful. If I wanted him I'd run him myself, for starters :P That said, since you have useful things around you, go ahead. I've recommended Feldon to the aforementioned guy who reminded me of Selvala as he's in a more removal happy group than me.

I haven't found myself missing the alternate populates. Note how in the scenario you mentioned, you've managed to successfully copy Kalonian Hydra. That's the deck's core engine assembled, you're already doing somewhat okay. I've just had greater success with focusing my attention on the three primary modules to try to streamline functionality and up consistency. If you stuff too many layers of conditional synergy together, you're likely to end up with bricks that do nothing in your current circumstances. Dualcaster Mage is a similar story, as is stuff like extra combats. Too many pieces need to come together already for this extra layer of "what if" that comes online at a particular time to be worth including.

Archangel of Thune also happens to be one of the less impressive beatsticks when assessed on pure performance alone, so you should be okay without her hopefully. I do hope you're running Quartzwood Crasher, this thing's been an absolute superbeast as a standalone or in a copy setup. The depth it brings to the combat step continues to surprise me.

The Regal Behemoth copying does sound pretty cute. The whole copying a beatstick angle comes with the upside of not needing to commit heavily to the board if desired, which in turn is nice for rebuilding from wraths as not a whole lot of actual cardboard gets swept up. That and, as silly as it may sound, there's only so much you can do with a mana overflow in here. This may admittedly pair nicely with your choice to keep the repeatable populates, and in that case I'd recommend Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage to you. Still, all this is too many layers of "what if" to me. I could see a single doubling being enough, and for that it might be better to hide it on a more resilient permanent in Mirari's Wake or something.

I do believe I've mentioned before that Glacial Chasm gets popped by Beast Within variants, so it's not like the deck's utterly defenceless here. Constant Mists is more problematic, and there's no good answer here. You could consider Warstorm Surge? Shaman of Forgotten Ways could help accelerate the Surge-based demise, but eleven mana is no slouch for the deck to front.
 
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Post by yeti1069 » 3 years ago

I'm doing ok. How about you? Glad to see you posting on this deck again.

I actually just went through and cut Dualcaster and Feldon along with a few other cards.

Quartzwood is in the mail, and on the way. I'm excited for it, although I had been a little disappointed that it wasn't legendary--the deck I took apart to make this was built around Stonebrow, Krosan Hero as a trample tribal. Would have been nice to have that as a commander. In any case, yeah, getting jammed right in here!

Only thing I'm missing really from Archangel is the lifelink, but I have some life gain elsewhere.

I do have the Guildmage in here, and it's been good. Making additional copies of stuff has been tons of value. Instant speed as an option has been valuable as well, and the 3 cards I have to do that have been flexible as grave hate or lifegain (Guildmage doesn't have a lot of additional value, but it doesn't tap to activate like Trostani does...).

As for mana doublers, Mirari would be great, but I only have one, and it's too pricey to buy another. Besides, making copies of a 5/5 trampler doesn't suck, and the additional cards that come with being the Monarch are nice. What I like about Behemoth is that he's a threat in additional to all the value...and tapping lands for 7 mana each is fun!!!

As for Chasm, yeah...I had already used Beast Within a couple turns earlier to delay Marit Lage coming in by blowing up Dark Depths in response to Thespian's Stage's trigger, but then Mists showed up. If it weren't so pricey, I would put in a Questing Beast, I think, which helps vs a lot of strategies, but I could also just run something that says damage can't be prevented this turn. Bonecrusher Giant can do that while also maybe getting rid of a utility creature, and providing a body afterward. I had considered Warstorm Surge, but 6 mana is a lot for that. Although, it isn't necessarily the "do nothing" enchantment it's often accused of being in this deck since you can be populating creatures in the turn you drop it. It won't solve Glacial Chasm, but does help vs a lot of other strategies.

Luminate Primordial has been interesting as an answer to some stuff.

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Post by yeti1069 » 3 years ago

This is what my list looks like at the moment. I dropped the Packleader for Quartzwood, but don't think that was the right swap.

Top of the curve looks a little heavy to me, but not sure what swaps I would make here.
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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

It ebbs and weaves, but not too shabby on the whole I guess. The deck's still getting walked regularly, as it's the only deck of mine I can play with absolutely no expectation of winning. As such, it's perfect for social lockdown Cockatrice EDH that my group has taken up.

Quartzwood Crasher being legendary would be horrible, as Ghired would lose the ability to copy him for massive gains :P That said, I see where you're coming from, and yes - he would make for a pretty cool trample commander. The fact Crasher comes down and does really stupid stuff even without a copier makes me wonder again about the rhino plan. My most recent fast nonsense draws have involved Aurelia and rhino swarms without any copied beatsticks. It would likely be more consistent, as you wouldn't need to assemble the beatstick and the copier, but I find the concept of multiple Hydras or whatever else fun. That, and how deep would the support for pure rhinos be anyway?

I do agree that Garruk's Packleader is not an obvious cut, and I'm considering putting it back in. Pushing Ghired by a turn to get Packleader out early doesn't result in cards being drawn quicker or anything, it results in a comparatively stunted board state. Still, that's how five mana support spells be.

The beauty of a relatively open-ended multi-colour legend like Ghired is that there are many things you can do with it. Big ETB removal like Luminate Primordial or Terastodon? Sure. Bits and pieces of tactical populate? Bring it. Your list looks perfectly fine, and you get to run Aura Shards and Archon of Valor's Reach (which would not fly in my group). I'm not fully on board with the Angelic Skirmisher, don't like that Shamanic Revelation is a bit winmore in its returns, and I'd jam Chain Reaction before any of your 7+ drop wipes, but all this is minor quips. No Blade of Selves as scarcity?
 
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Post by yeti1069 » 3 years ago

So, I got to play with Quartzwood...and he was INSANE! He works so well with the Rhino plan! That game, had an opponent playing Avacyn, and I used Hate Mirage to copy the angel, then populated with Ghired attack trigger to make one that would stick around. Having Avacyn ensured I didn't lose the game, then Quartzwood won me the game, making an 18/18, then a 22/22 thanks to rhino tokens and putting trample on Avacyn for an attack. Bonkers! I own one Avacyn, and loaned it to a friend (the one who was playing it in this game, and from whom I made a copy). Once I get it back, I'll probably add it to the deck. I know you said you felt like Hate Mirage wasn't of interest, because if you wanted a particular creature you would have just played it yourself, but I've definitely found that being able to copy the two best creatures on the board and then copy/keep one of them has been very strong. Maybe it's a meta thing, but I run into Eldrazi, huge dragons, Elesh Norn, and all sorts of other monstrous cards that I wouldn't, or can't, necessarily include, but that make a tremendous impact on the board.

Aurelia has been solid every time she shows up, but the only time I've had an infinite attack combo with her, it didn't work because one opponent had an Exquisite Blood in play, and I had to use the other opponent to swing in with Flamerush to copy her.

I really do think the fun of the deck comes from the copies and populating. Sure, Ghired on his own can take over a table with 0 additional support, but as a build-around, the populate is where its at, which is why I lean into it.

When I ran Packleader, I didn't ever make an effort to drop it before Ghired. I always felt Ghired on curve, with Packleader the next turn was the better play--both ways you need +1 card on turn 6, but with Ghired out first, you're getting in 10 damage worth of attack on 6 as well. I cut it just because I wasn't taking time to really consider what to drop for Quartzwood.

Archon I just added after reviewing my list and noticing that I don't have that many instants or sorceries that I NEED to play later in the game, and could use it to blank a lot of interaction on a pretty decent body--why play a Teferi's Protection when i could just say "NO WRATHS"? It shuts down Constant Mists, Counterspells, etc... depending on the mode chosen (or multiplies with copies). Haven't played it yet, so not sure if it will live up to my intentions, but as for the group, people I play with are running WAY worse nonsense.

Skirmisher I was looking at as a flexible answer to a few problems: if I'm low on life, lifelink to get back in the game. If attacks aren't looking good, first strike to turn them in my favor. If crackback is risky, vigilance to swing freely. Don't know how it will work, and isn't necessarily the best answer, but had it to hand.

Shamanic Revelation I've played with just 2 or 3 rhinos and 1-3 other critters out and it's be fantastic at giving me a life buffer while refilling my hand. Maybe it's the meta I'm in, but it runs the gamut from very aggressive stompy stuff, to semi-fast combo and a lot in between. Not quite cEDH (usually), but some people are flirting with the idea, so I typically can't just be the aggressor and aim to knock out opponents without too much disruption.

I had forgotten about Chain Reaction. Not sure I would take it over the others except maybe Predation. Blasphemous Act is almost always cheaper, often just 1 mana, and kills the biggest stuff consistently, while Hour of Reckoning is often both inexpensive and asymmetrical.

For Blade of Selves, it just hasn't been on my priority list at over $10, but an opponent did some WORK with one in a game tonight, so I'm reconsidering it.

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Post by yeti1069 » 3 years ago

Thinking I'll cut Rampaging Baloths, and two other cards for: Not sure exactly what I want else I want to cut for those.
Also, definitely want to get a Blade of Selves for this.

Additionally, I do want to try and work Packleader back in, and am looking at Ravenous Slime as a potential grave hate option that shuts off death triggers for opponents (Grave Pact and the like).

Suggested cuts?

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

Welcome to Gruul Chungus land. Now copy him and get three 34/34 tramplers :P

I forget Blasphemous Act costs so much mana as it's pretty much always cast for R anyway :P It's interesting how in a way Hour of Reckoning and Ezuri's Predation seem to offer complementary functionality, but they're both steep as hell. If you'd rather your wipes were asymmetrical, I've had good fortune with Whift in a different deck. Frankly, it'd probably be hella good in Ghired - send the opposition back to the stone age and alpha away. I mean, we both go for alphas within our lists, you've still got Naya Charm, I've been rocking the heinous looking yet surprisingly good Subjugator Angel.

I'm still not sold on Shamanic Revelation. I guess the incidental lifegain is nice, but the fact you need four bodies around for this to equate Return of the Wildspeaker with a single rhino just isn't that great. It doubles back to the whole populate angle, in a way. It seems you like running cards that double down when you're ahead, and that's okay. I didn't even notice Rampaging Baloths, that's an easy cut. Seeing how you offed Feldon, Karmic Guide is an echo fiesta and doesn't even make tokens. Does Mimic Vat work in a Hate Mirage'y way where you steal other people's stuff with it? I'm not super enamoured with any of the non-Generous Gift stuff in your putative include list, but it might all be meta stuff.
 
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Post by yeti1069 » 3 years ago

Winds of Abandon is a good call. I'm concerned about giving my opponents a lot of land, but as far as a one-sided wipe goes, it looks solid. Reckoning is often paid for with tapped creatures (mostly the non-tokens that are about to die anyway). I've definitely paid 0 mana for it more than once.

I'm actually thinking of swapping Packleader back in for Shamanic Revelation. If I had a Return of the Wildspeaker I would probably run that instead.

Karmic has been fairly nuts on occasion. Feldon I felt was kind of slow, being 6 total to psuedo-reanimate one thing, and having to either wait a turn, or requiring a haste enabler. Then he's also kind of fragile, and draws some hate. Karmic, on the other hand, works immediately, and can be copied to great effect. I had one game that I probably copied Karmic 5 or 6 times over two turns (3 copies one turn with the echo trigger on the stack). It's also a flying blocker or beater (with haste) for the turn cycle it comes out.

Mimic Vat has done some good work, both in getting me value, and as minor grave hate. In my last game I yoinked an Eternal Witness as it hit the grave, which my opponent overlooked, and that managed to both ruin the rest of their planned turn, and got me 3 cards back before Vat grabbed something better and got removed. Vat can also grab something of our own that hits the bin. I tend to see 2-6 board wipes a game, so Vat can put in some work.

I was considering Knight of Autumn in place of the Duergar. It doesn't hit two permanents, but it also doesn't care if your lands aren't set up correctly, and has alternate modes that can be relevant.

As for the other adds...Thorn Mammoth seems like decent creature removal, as well as a solid body, but maybe not that impressive. The Bonecrusher is to combat Constant Mists and Glacial Chasm, while the Slime would be to combat all the graveyard decks a bit, but these may be more than is needed.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

The beauty of being in three colours is that there's a plethora of relatively useful stuff kicking around. I may like my build the way I shaped it up, but that doesn't invalidate yours or anything. In fact, I have a habit of trying to poke and pry at my builds to find weak spots, be they for imminent replacement or if something else cool shows up. For example, the Chungus post math got me thinking about Archangel of Thune a bit, but then I played it, copied it, and my board got +9/+9. I mean, if this is the worst of the beatsticks, I'm happy :P Still, the fact it's easy to get something serviceable together means that it's sometimes hard to talk yourself out of abandoning cards that have performed okay to pursue greater consistency/potential/whatever.

And now, a miniature thought experiment related to the draw - remember Rishkar's Expertise exists. Now suddenly all the Return of the Wildspeakers of the world look quite a bit less appealing. I've had good success with Life's Legacy and Greater Good. What's giving up a rhino for the cost-efficient level of dig this offers? It's interesting how two plus a rhino sac to draw four is cool, six to draw four and cast a Chungus or something for free is cool, and then somehow five to just draw the four without a sac or free cast feels lacking.

You haven't included your land base, but I wouldn't be surprised if you hadn't splurged on a perfect set of fetches and fetchables. If you have trouble accessing land types for whenever you need Duergar Hedge-Mage online, going Knight of Autumn (or even Reclamation Sage!) is perfectly fine. And yeah, I did acknowledge those sound like meta picks. With regards to Thorn Mammoth, keep in mind how board-in-a-can Avenger of Zendikar would be. And neither of us runs him. I use him as a yardstick to assess expensive options against.
 
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Post by yeti1069 » 3 years ago

I didn't include the mana base, largely due to laziness. Definitely do not have the fetches, nor ABUR duals, to increase the consistency further, but I have a compliment of Shocks and most of the other base-land-typed dual lands to fetch off of the non-basic-exclusive land tutors. For the most part, the land issue hasn't come up, but I did have a Duergar in my hand last night that never got the chance to come in to hit two permanents (but I did have Aura Shards, so it didn't matter).

Yeah, there's a lot of tweaking to be done, and some of my choices have definitely been meta-dependent, although the group I play with is large enough that I'm always going to see decks that fall outside of whatever choices I've made. I also do like kind of cute interactions in my decks, and as you observed, enjoy leaning heavily into the copying effects. If I just wanted straight big fatty beatdown, I've had other decks that were a little better at that (although this can grow back a board rather quickly).

Knight of Autumn I was thinking of more as a stronger copyable card than Duergar--if there aren't any artifacts or enchantments you want to blow up, it offers some useful modes. As I've noted before, lifegain has been an issue for the deck on occasion as it generates some hate (and there are plenty of heavy-hitters in the meta).

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

The deck's still getting copious play time due to regular virtual EDH. The aforementioned lack of win aspirations allows me to do various silly stuff, particularly if Helm of the Host comes out. I've gotten quite good at finding funny ways to off myself with the resulting board state. How does making 140 rhinos into a freshly played Elemental Bond sound? :P I feel I'm still picking up on some piloting tricks with this thing, various sequencing options. Spare mana for a strived Twinflame onto Ghired is pretty cool for an extra rhino if there's nothing better to do. He also wears Blade of Selves nicely. All this is even cuter with token doubling, so Doubling Season reaffirms itself as a reasonable keep.

I just had a rather unusual game that merits documentation. Not for any particular transferability or anything, but just for the sheer ridiculousness that ensued. A guy bust out a fresh Ruhan netdeck, and pooped out an on-curve Magus of the Balance. This is not a common effect in the group, so everybody looked at it a little leerily. I set up some early enchantments in Reconnaissance and Elemental Bond before taking to holding up Teferi's Protection. If the Magus gets cracked, I just phase out and everybody else gets separated from their lands and creatures. Still, I don't have too much ramp going on, and I skip a TefProt turn to chase out Ghired on curve so I can get cards off rhinos. Thankfully I get away with it as Ruhan's busy faffing with a Hedron Archive or something. Mayael has ramped quite a bit, gotten some cutesy creatures out. Eventually he lands Warstorm Surge and blasts the Magus down. I get a little sad, but just a little. The phase-out would have been cute, but also led to a non-game.

I continue holding TefProt as I hear shields are good, and do a hyper slow motion wombo combo setup over three turns. Helm of the Host comes out, then Kiki comes out, then the Helm goes on the Kiki. Pako ingested my Parallel Lives, or I'd have just ended it then and there. The dog also happened to nab Ruhan's Settle the Wreckage, but there's a Beast Within with Haldan's name on it for when I untap. The table starts musing on how I can be stopped, to what I truthfully answer that at this point I'd have to be wiped. Mayael scrounges up a Chandra's Ignition and points it at a five power dude. Thankfully I've still got the TefProt! I shorthand my entire sequence, creating an arbitrarily numerous wall of Kiki, use the two leftover copies on Wood Elves and phase out. Oh wait, Pako rips a Dualcaster Mage. I wince, expecting an Ignition copy pointed at the pupper. He instead chooses to phase out as well. Huh. Nobody else has anything super interesting, I untap and kill Ruhan and Mayael with Kikis, still keeping arbitrarily many behind. And this is where something that has never happened to me before and likely will never happen again commences - I get to have a main two with infinite Kikis kicking around.

The Elemental Bond is still here, so I can copy rhinos and draw to my heart's content. I've got that Wood Elf, so I go and get all my forests out. I start considering theoretical scenarios - what's the worst that Pako can pull on me? The deck's relatively new, so I don't know its shenanigans inside and out yet, so I assume a pretty standard wipe scenario. Avacyn is pretty good counterplay to that. But what if he somehow exiles the Avacyn and then wipes, which has happened in some past games (against other foes)? I set a dig target of Heroic Intervention and start drawing. I find the Avacyn before the Intervention, so she comes out. I chance upon a Steve, so I rip all the basics out of my deck to match prior Wood Elf action. Once I hit Intervention, I look at my 30+ card hand and assess its constituents. There's some removal in two Beast Within variants, the Intervention, a Chord of Calling, an Eternal Witness, and an assortment of fat and stuff. I figure "good enough" and pass. I've got a pretty chunky indestructible board, hexproof if needed, two pieces of removal. I realise that I could have Chorded out my whole deck's worth of creatures because I have infinite green chumps that can convoke literally as I pass, but I shrug it off and don't ask to do so. My setup should still be enough, right?

Wrong. Pako goes into the tank for a while, emerges with a plan and points the public knowledge Bribery at me. Hello Subjugator Angel, you traitorous bird you, and my wide range of blockers turns sideways. This particular turn of events could have been avoided had I done the Chord dump as considered, or even thought to respond with Chord to the Bribery. I tunnel visioned, expecting him to get Gisela when doing my turn planning, and kind of blanked Subjugator's existence. Still, not to fear - his board's not that crazy, I can eat a swing if I pop the dog, which I have the power to do. And then, to my surprise, my Parallel Lives gets played out and I get double Clone Legioned. Well crap. I'm suddenly faced with threat overload, as I need to answer three things while having only two removal spells. If I let Dualcaster live, he can keep making further copies of Clone Legion by Kiki'ing the thing, get an arbitrary number of non-legendary post-Helm Kikis and munch me. If I let Parallel Lives live, the very first Clone Legion will seed him with a post-Helm Kiki that can infinite by itself. If I let the dog live, I just get killed by the dog. Plus, realistically, the double megaclone will seed him with enough stuff and Kikis to smash my face in anyway. Seeing how there's no out, I perish.

Was this a "drop the ball in the end zone" moment? When corrected for in-game realism, ultimately not really. It was the surprise multi-Clone Legion that did the trick, and I was not factoring that into my calculations at all. Even now, with perfect hindsight of what's about to go down, the only loss avoidance involves deeper digging to get Subjugator plus Ogre Battledriver out of the library. However, they can't be on the field either, as then the megaclone scoops them up. So ultimately choosing to not go Chord barf was not my downfall in this one hyper specific case. I will be sure to keep my findings in mind next time I manage to get the Kiki Helm infinite but not end the game :P
 
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Post by yeti1069 » 3 years ago

Well that's just ridiculous!

What do you think about Elesh Norn in here? Just opened one from a Mystery Booster, and it seems like it ticks a lot of boxes here: pumps the team, helps push damage through, does stupid things with Helm of the Host, and even does work if I can make a normal copy, stacking to -4/-4 before state-based effects kill off additional copies.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

Elesh Norn would be wicked good here, yes. I don't play her to avoid being a douche to my opposition, same reason there's no Aura Shards or Yosei locks. If your group won't bust out the pitchforks on you for this, by all means go right ahead. And don't forget you can get a brief blip of increased -X/-X if you copy her.
 
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Post by yeti1069 » 3 years ago

Quarantine online games have been a higher power level overall than I was used to playing (although the groups I played with before seem like they were higher power than the norm appears to be for commenters on this site), so things like this are probably totally reasonable.

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Post by FunnyLittleBirds » 3 years ago

Hi Rumpy,
How much Red temporary token generation do you think is essential? I currently run Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Flamerush Rider, Feldon of the Third Path, and Splinter Twin. I do not run Flameshadow Conjuring or Twinflame. I have 1 slot open in the 99, and up to two slots open because I'm considering dropping Victory's Herald. Victory's Herald doesn't do anything extra when copied, so I'm considering dropping it for another "payoff" card. Thoughts?

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Post by yeti1069 » 3 years ago

FunnyLittleBirds wrote:
3 years ago
Hi Rumpy,
How much Red temporary token generation do you think is essential? I currently run Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Flamerush Rider, Feldon of the Third Path, and Splinter Twin. I do not run Flameshadow Conjuring or Twinflame. I have 1 slot open in the 99, and up to two slots open because I'm considering dropping Victory's Herald. Victory's Herald doesn't do anything extra when copied, so I'm considering dropping it for another "payoff" card. Thoughts?
I've found Flameshadow to be ridiculous. I'd rate that way higher than Feldon.

Twinflame is a solid card. I view it as the mirror to Flameshadow: One comes down before your beefy critters and copies them when they come in, while the other comes after the fat has hit the table.

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