Kykar, Wind's Fury - Spellslinger Tokens

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MeowZeDung
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

On the day after Thanksgiving, while nearly everyone else within a thousand square miles is either shopping or lying on the couch comatose after eating their 8th plate of leftovers, I decided to take some of my day off and re-vamp the OP of this thread using the primer template. It's not nearly done, but the core of it is there. I won't apply for primer status for some time yet since I want to test the list as it currently stands a whole lot more. In the meantime, I would be grateful to any of you that wouldn't mind proof reading it and letting me know about any obvious gaps or errors you see or helpful revisions.
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Post by OCPunisher » 4 years ago

Just saw our fearless leader on the latest MTG Muddstah video here. Setting aside the philosophical differences in that person's deck vs anyone else's, and also setting aside any rules mistakes that were made in this particular game, the one card that stood out most to me in the video was Sentinel Tower. I didn't see any discussion of the card in this thread, and it's buried somewhere in my list of things to try at some point, but seeing it in action here makes me want to move it up the ladder. Granted, that would require a slight change in play-style from a reactive "always have the answer" approach to a more proactive tap-out style. Does anyone else have any experience with this card?
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

MeowZeDung wrote:
4 years ago
On the day after Thanksgiving, while nearly everyone else within a thousand square miles is either shopping or lying on the couch comatose after eating their 8th plate of leftovers, I decided to take some of my day off and re-vamp the OP of this thread using the primer template. It's not nearly done, but the core of it is there. I won't apply for primer status for some time yet since I want to test the list as it currently stands a whole lot more. In the meantime, I would be grateful to any of you that wouldn't mind proof reading it and letting me know about any obvious gaps or errors you see or helpful revisions.
Funny you should mention, I'm on the approval committee, and we're always happy to help make your decklist pop.

The general thread looks really nice. Visually everything fits well, aesthetically I'm pretty pleased. You've got a lot of content, but you've mixed it up well with imagery to break up the 'wall of text' vibe that a content-dense primer can have.

There's a couple of things I can suggest at present:
  • Deck History section - perhaps put a blurb in above the spoiler to indicate what to expect in the section? I expected a changelog, tbh.
  • Alternate decklists - Listing full 100 card decks is going to represent a TON of work for you for lists that you don't run, which seems crazy. What I'd suggest instead is doing a list of card inclusions for alternate archetypes (say, combo, storm, enchantress, whatever else). I did a similar thing in my Varina list, purely because she's a very varied commander and I didn't want the impression to come across that my build was the ONLY build. You're welcome to check the thread out in my sig if it helps. I think from memory I put it under 'notable exclusions' or something similar.
  • Deck Philosophy - I'd push this higher on the thread, above the decklist. It makes sense for a reader to know what general vibe they're in for before they hit the list itself. This is purely a suggestion, but perhaps you could use this for the first suggestion I made? The sections seem to (sort of) cover the same general area of playstyle and intentions for the list.
Hope all this helps - I'm happy to feed back more if you have any further questions, feel free to reply here or message me if it's easier. Keep going with it though, the thread is looking nice!
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

OCPunisher wrote:
4 years ago
the one card that stood out most to me in the video was Sentinel Tower. I didn't see any discussion of the card in this thread, and it's buried somewhere in my list of things to try at some point, but seeing it in action here makes me want to move it up the ladder. Granted, that would require a slight change in play-style from a reactive "always have the answer" approach to a more proactive tap-out style. Does anyone else have any experience with this card?
No experience with it, but I'll share my thoughts. It just seems like a cheaper Sphinx-bone Wand (which is a sweet pet card of mine fwiw) that resets each turn, or a MUCH worse Aetherflux Reservoir. Seems like something you could set a loop up with Isochron Scepter, Dramatic Reversal, and some mana rocks to machine gun the table, but again, I think there are better options. The "on your turn" and "cast before" (as opposed to before and including) clauses ruin it for me I think.

All that said, you can certainly go off with this thing. It's not at all unusual for my Kykar build to cast 6-7 spells on an average turn in the mid-game. 6 instants/sorceries would be 5+4+3+2+1=15 damage to a single target if you wanted it to, which does speed your aggro clock up quite a bit. I almost feel like without an Isochron loop I'd just use it for board control though. Still, with the same theoretical 6 spell turn, that's 5 damage to 3 targets which could be highly relevant in getting rid of annoying utility critters.

[mention]toctheyounger[/mention] thank you so much for the feedback! I kept things in the order that the template had them (I think??? maybe I moved something and forgot???) so the changelog, small as it is at this point, is at the end. I thought the deck philosophy section deserved an earlier slot as well, but again I was sticking with the template. Can I take this to mean that y'all are pretty lenient with author license over the template?

And by the by, I really appreciate your complimenting the visual effect and formatting. It's harder than it looks! I may or may not have borrowed several ideas from a certain esper zombie primer I saw around here :smirk:
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

MeowZeDung wrote:
4 years ago
@toctheyounger thank you so much for the feedback! I kept things in the order that the template had them (I think??? maybe I moved something and forgot???) so the changelog, small as it is at this point, is at the end. I thought the deck philosophy section deserved an earlier slot as well, but again I was sticking with the template. Can I take this to mean that y'all are pretty lenient with author license over the template?

And by the by, I really appreciate your complimenting the visual effect and formatting. It's harder than it looks! I may or may not have borrowed several ideas from a certain esper zombie primer I saw around here
Absolutely. The template is not a given, you're welcome to make it your own. It's there to help you IF you want it, but it's merely a suggestion. If it doesn't work for your thread, we're flexible. Hell, if you really, really want to you can make your primer from the ground up, it's really just there for people who don't want to do that (can't blame them, it's a labour of love).

The visual stuff IS hard. I love the end result, but hate the work myself. If it at all helps feel free to plagiarize! That primer is the best I've done, so if any of the code helps you out, you are most welcome to use it :)
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

First, some changes:




Myriad Landscape - by swapping out the Temples for 3 more basics I think this is a good upgrade to make and add some more ramp without taking up a spell slot. Field of Ruin was the worst of my three LD effects, and even Ghost Quarter is on the bubble in my mind, so I don't think Field will be missed at all.

Mirrorweave - After hearing what others had to say about this card, I can't wait to give it a go! It will be replacing Curse of the Swine, which was just too situational and too expensive in a lot of those situations. I feel like the deck is sitting pretty with it's density of answers even without it. Not to mention that Mirrorweave can be a more powerful answer than Curse a lot of the time.

Mission Briefing - Cheap top deck and graveyard manipulation at instant speed that gives a cast trigger and another Snapcaster-esque effect to go along with Mystic Retrieval and Past in Flames seems good for what I'm trying to do. Dovin's Veto is out to make room as it was the narrowest of the counters in the deck.

Increasing Vengeance - Decided on this over Reverberate because it's not a blank against creature decks and the flashback gives more utility. Can't wait to copy a Dig Through Time, then flashback IV copying the original twice more while it's still on the stack :cool: Giving up on Thrill of Possibility for the time being to make room.

Honor the Fallen - Thanks to [mention]OCPunisher[/mention] for bringing this sweet tech to my attention! It gives the deck some much needed graveyard hate, at least for creatures, that comes stapled to a cheap instant with incidental lifegain. Cathartic Reunion gets the boot to make way.

Electrodominance - Some wrath insurance and/or instant speed 2 for 1 value that can make use of spirit mana to flash in some of the squishier engines like Young Pyromancer or Monastery Mentor while removing a problematic creature or frying an opponent. I have high hopes for this card. By Force can be great, but only situationally and at sorcery speed, and I'm already running Vandalblast and other cards that can remove artifacts, so out it goes.



Second, some fodder for discussion:

Recently Forsake the Worldly was featured in the card of the day thread, and there was quite a bit of discussion about it, mostly regarding cost, synergy, and "better" options. It got me thinking about Return to Dust in this deck. I love the flexibility and power of RtD, but it is quite expensive for a list that's trying to keep it's mana curve low. Perhaps it's worth swapping it out for Disenchant to reduce mana cost, or maybe Forsake the Worldly as a middle ground that keeps the exile with a second "mode" ? All three are Sunforger compatible, so I really can't say what the "right" answer is. They are all pretty similar, and I will still have Chaos Warp and Generous Gift, so any substitution will probably not change the consistency of the deck that much.

With the addition of some more basics and Myriad Landscape, I'm starting to consider swapping out a few more duals (probably the fast lands) for 2-3 islands and Mystic Sanctuary. [mention]darrenhabib[/mention] posted a really in depth thread about this card and it can certainly be bonkers. My concerns are 1) nerfing my 3-color fixing too much and 2) not having a sufficient threshold of islands and ways to get them in play. I'm running 4 fetches and Ash Barrens, 4 duals with the "island" subtype, and 3 basic islands, but if I make the switch that will be 4-6 basic islands. I really don't even know where to begin calculating the likelihood or consistency of being able to get three islands in play and still fetch the Sanctuary. Then there's the question of if it's even worthwhile to make these changes just to get a spell back from the yard without also running bounce lands or Meloku the Clouded Mirror and extra turn spells to make infinite loops.

Thoughts?
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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

MeowZeDung wrote:
4 years ago
With the addition of some more basics and Myriad Landscape, I'm starting to consider swapping out a few more duals (probably the fast lands) for 2-3 islands and Mystic Sanctuary. darrenhabib posted a really in depth thread about this card and it can certainly be bonkers. My concerns are 1) nerfing my 3-color fixing too much and 2) not having a sufficient threshold of islands and ways to get them in play. I'm running 4 fetches and Ash Barrens, 4 duals with the "island" subtype, and 3 basic islands, but if I make the switch that will be 4-6 basic islands. I really don't even know where to begin calculating the likelihood or consistency of being able to get three islands in play and still fetch the Sanctuary. Then there's the question of if it's even worthwhile to make these changes just to get a spell back from the yard without also running bounce lands or Meloku the Clouded Mirror and extra turn spells to make infinite loops.

Thoughts?
I had a look through your list, and I'm not convinced that the Island ratio is going to give you any consistency on triggering it.

If you can save up for the Island fetch-lands, Polluted Delta, Misty Rainforest, Scalding Tarn, Flood Plain then you'll be in a much better position to massage your land count during the course of the game AND have further ways to activate Mystic Sanctuary at times that you want.
Further to this you really want to eventually get Fabled Passage and Prismatic Vista as ways to fix your mana.
But I'm not telling you anything you didn't already want, it's just big money :(
Removing the fast-duels as you mentioned is the first port of call, Inspiring Vantage, Spirebluff Canal and then Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds are a bit slow.

The other thing is having ways to draw the card you put on top at instant speed, in the cases that you want to respond to what opponents are doing. For example you want to save your creatures from a board wipe and Unbreakable Formation is in your graveyard.
You can crack your Flooded Strand for Mystic Sanctuary to put Unbreakable Formation on top of your library
At the moment you have Jeskai Ascendancy, The Locust God, Brainstorm, Impulse, Frantic Search, Dig Through Time, Irrigated Farmland, Geier Reach Sanitarium.
I would personally would want Sensei's Divining Top as another enabler for this and looks like a great way to make sure that you consistently trigger your token generators. Once you have a couple of token generators in play you are almost certainly going to want to use the draw ability to put the Sensei's Divining Top on your library, so that you can draw it for your draw phase. It only costs 1 to recast it, and with the Spirit token generated you can gain that mana back in a pinch.
Other cards to consider are Opt, Izzet Charm (Sunforgable), Sunbaked Canyon, Fiery Islet.
Forsake the Worldly that you mentioned has cycling so can draw you at instant speed.

The other thing is that with Sunforger you can put an instant from your graveyard back into your library (on top with the Mystic Sanctuary from a fetch-land) if wanting cast it in response to the stack.
Another card that will help your overall game plan is Tithe and you can search for it with Sunforger. You can get Irrigated Farmland and Hallowed Fountain for example. This means that you are 2 Islands deeper into your 3 Island count for Mystic Sanctuary.
Just a great card for triggering Kykar, Wind's Fury, you can go a land count down easily with this card, as it acts basically as a land, so you can just go down to 35 lands (just remove a basic Mountain)

Other little interactions you can look out for is Gamble can be used as a guaranteed way to have access to an instant or sorcery as if it gets discarded, you have Mystic Sanctuary in your deck to gain access to it.

In a pinch you could use Chaos Warp to target your own Mystic Sanctuary to shuffle it back into your library, so that you can use a fetch-land to re-trigger it.

Hope this helps, you really want those fetch-lands, otherwise Mystic Sanctuary is going to just be a tapped land most games, and you will not get to truly use it as a powerful tool in your deck. Then look to make a few additions as I've suggested once you get to that point :)

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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

Thanks for all the input [mention]darrenhabib[/mention]!

I never thought of the interactions between Mystic Sanctuary and Gamble/Sunforger/Chaos Warp!

I do think the deck can benefit from more instant speed draw, and I have considered Opt, Izzet Charm, and Fact or Fiction. At some point I might just bite the bullet and exchange a little bit of power and cost efficiency for that sweet, sweet instant speed and put those three in over Sleight of Hand, Gitaxian Probe, and Serum Visions.

Unfortunately, the rest of your advice runs into the bottleneck of cost. Fetches, Top, and to a lesser extent, Tithe are all pricey pieces of cardboard. A Zendikar fetch reprint will certainly help get me closer to one day being the owner of a Scalding Tarn, and Prismatic Vista/Fabled Passage seem to be good investments because they go in just about every deck.

When it comes to Top though, there's the added issue of the tension between fun factor and power. I know philosophies of the format vary from player to player, but I feel like top + Kykar would be a bit ridiculous and not fun to play against. It's a perfectly legit line of play, and I'm sure a cEDH Kykar build would run top, Scroll Rack, Chrome Mox, etc. in a heartbeat, but I just don't think I'm willing to commit to going down that road from a financial or fun-factor standpoint. At least for now. That said, you're right that top + Kykar + sanctuary would be fantastic.

Thanks for all the input. I'll keep Sanctuary in my mono blue decks for now, but keep it in mind for this list someday.
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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

MeowZeDung wrote:
4 years ago
Thanks for all the input darrenhabib!

When it comes to Top though, there's the added issue of the tension between fun factor and power. I know philosophies of the format vary from player to player, but I feel like top + Kykar would be a bit ridiculous and not fun to play against. It's a perfectly legit line of play, and I'm sure a cEDH Kykar build would run top, Scroll Rack, Chrome Mox, etc. in a heartbeat, but I just don't think I'm willing to commit to going down that road from a financial or fun-factor standpoint. At least for now. That said, you're right that top + Kykar + sanctuary would be fantastic.
Yeah it's a big money investment, and really the point of Mystic Sanctuary is where you can integrate into your deck without any hassles. Hassles meaning that you are lucky enough to already have access to the various expensive cards that can help with multi-color decks.

I will disagree about Sensei's Divining Top being over-powered in any way in a Kykar deck and not obnoxious at all. Like it's right on being good enough in the deck without causing any problems. Don't feel bad if you added it by any means. But yeah the $30 price tag is a little obnoxious :P

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Post by OCPunisher » 4 years ago

I like a lot of these changes.
- Been having great success with Mission Briefing and Electrodominance.
- The three Temples are on my chopping block as well, in favor of another dual and the two MH Canopy lands.
- I've also considered Mystic Sanctuary in this list, but even with access to all my expensive duals and fetches, I still don't think I will consistently achieve three Islands often enough.
- I would definitely make sure to keep at least Forsake the Worldly. The exile part of the spell is absolutely worth the one extra mana over OG Disenchant. Your call on whether or not to go all the way to Return to Dust, or perhaps Crush Contraband. I'm not currently running any of these since I have Chaos Warp, Generous Gift, and Unexpectedly Absent, and that might need to change.
- One key difference that led me to choose Reverberate over Increasing Vengeance was being able to copy someone else's stuff (like the turn 3 Cultivate, for example).
- Lastly, one new card I'm trying out is Brought Back. On paper, it seems pretty flexible: early, it can just bring back a fetch land to "ramp" us, and late-game, it can recover from a wrath or a key removal spell on your Sunforger.
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

OCPunisher wrote:
4 years ago
I would definitely make sure to keep at least Forsake the Worldly. The exile part of the spell is absolutely worth the one extra mana over OG Disenchant. Your call on whether or not to go all the way to Return to Dust, or perhaps Crush Contraband. I'm not currently running any of these since I have Chaos Warp, Generous Gift, and Unexpectedly Absent, and that might need to change.
You've got it backwards: I'm currently running RtD and considering switching to FtW or disenchant. I think with spirit mana floating around (pun intended) the added cost of FtW is probably fine. I might try it out in the next round of changes, which will probably not be until after the new set incase there's any new toys.
One key difference that led me to choose Reverberate over Increasing Vengeance was being able to copy someone else's stuff (like the turn 3 Cultivate, for example).
Oh yeah, when reverberate gets em, it really gets em. Copy your counter, counter your counter :cool: I'm thinking the flashback value will just be more valuable and consistent. We'll see.

Brought back is intriguing, I just don't know if there's enough targets to justify it here. Let me know how it plays.
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

I'm considering testing out Divergent Transformations. Turning two spirits into a Talrand and Locust God or Brudiclad and Monastery Mentor at instant speed seems good. Also, a clunky Chaos Warp type effect in a pinch is nice to have around. Even better in multiplayer.

Anyone have thoughts or experience with this card?
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Post by OCPunisher » 4 years ago

MeowZeDung wrote:
4 years ago
I'm considering testing out Divergent Transformations. Turning two spirits into a Talrand and Locust God or Brudiclad and Monastery Mentor at instant speed seems good. Also, a clunky Chaos Warp type effect in a pinch is nice to have around. Even better in multiplayer.

Anyone have thoughts or experience with this card?
Hmm...at first I thought "twice the Chaos Warp for just one extra mana, assuming a 'standard' four-person pod...seems great!". However, Chaos Warp has several things that this doesn't:
- it hits ANYTHING, which makes it more flexible. In a deck with access to three colors, that efficiency and flexibility to check off multiple boxes means you have that much more space to spend on other things.
- it comes out from a Sunforger. Much less important, but it's harder for it to come out on time.
- it scales downward as opponents get eliminated. Also less important, but it's entirely possible that you'll have to pay 5 or 6 mana for this later in the game after someone gets knocked out, and that price takes a lot of the upside away.

The "combo-ish" aspect of finding your own stuff at the price of a token or two might be fine, but if you have the tokens to spare, doesn't that usually mean that something is able to make them already? Maybe I'm nitpicking at this point, but I'm just not a huge fan of this one.

I actually wanted to take a minute to talk about all of the different one-mana cantrips.
- Brainstorm, Ponder, and Preordain all seem like they are locks.
- I'm personally locked on Opt and Serum Visions as well.
- I'm not counting Faithless Looting or Frantic Search here, as I think they are different effects, but they would probably also both be locked in.
- Gitaxian Probe, Sleight of Hand and Think Twice are just below the line for me, but could easily be next.
- I don't personally run delve spells or have much for graveyard interaction, so Thought Scour loses some appeal, but it obviously gets better if you do run those sorts of things.
- The ones I wanted to specifically bring up are Ancestral Vision and Visions of Beyond. Thoughts on either of these and where they rank in the pecking order?
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

Good points about Divergent Transformations. It's most certainly not chaos warp, and I viewed that "mode" as the floor with the combo "mode" of turning tokens into token engines just before you untap for your turn being the ceiling. The cmc is rough unless you have 3-4 opponents though. It might just be too much of a magical Christmas land card unless it's cheating eldrazi in or something.

Regarding cantrips:

I have been giving some thought to opt over gitaxian probe.

I'm keeping sleight of hand in for now, and I think I'd always run it over ancestral vision. When ancestral is good, it's great. I think that's only when you suspend on t1-4 though. Just a total whiff mid-late game.

I'm torn on think twice. On the one hand it's card advantage and two cast triggers on one card. On the other hand it's a small over costed effect. I'm not currently running it.

I hadn't looked at visions of beyond, but with the popularity of graveyard decks and how full my own yard gets, this could be great. I'd probably put it in over thought scour to test.
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

I had a fun and very swingy game with Kykar a couple of nights ago where all three players got out to a great start.
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My opening hand was Past in Flames, a couple of cantrips, lands in all three colors, and a Mind Stone. Snap keep for T3 Kykar and future card advantage/explosiveness.

The God Eternal Oketra player went t2 Blind Obedience t3 Soul's Attendant and Thraben Inspector t4 Extraplanar Lens, crack the clue t5 Oketra and Elspeth, Sun's Champion. Yikes! The Blind Obedience proved to be oppressive and annoying all game.

The Drana, Liberator of Malakir player went t2 Sword of the Animist t3 Drana t4 equip, swing, play Strionic Resonator t5 swing, copy sword trigger with resonator, get Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Metallic Mimic and Phyrexian Arena on the battlefield.

All three of us were set up pretty well with our early game plans, but they definitely seemed more threatening. I sat on Tragic Arrogance for a turn until it had enough good targets and pulled the trigger, which most notably got rid of a huge Drana (that had kindly killed Elspeth for me), Oketra, and Extraplanar Lens. I resolved Eldrazi Monument giving me Kykar and one spirit in play so I could block Drana, or Oketra and any 4/4 zombie friends, without losing my blockers. The Oketra player saw that as a big enough threat that they burned two exile effects to bring me down to 0 creatures, forcing me to sac the monument on my upkeep.

The Drana player played a Lashwrithe and did something like 15 commander damage in a single attack to Oketra and also stuck an Anowon the Ruin Sage and Malakir Bloodwitch. More yikes!

On my next turn I played Saheeli, Sublime Artificer, Skullclamp, then drew into Aetherflux Reservoir and removal for the Bloodwitch. I played reservoir then jammed a couple of cheap loot spells until I was out of mana, which brought me up to something like 35 life. I had some chump blockers to protect Saheeli, and hoped no one else had a way to get rid of the reservoir. I was set up to minus Saheeli the next turn, making a servo into a copy of reservoir and then storm off with two reservoirs, hopefully for the win.

Oketra ran into the traditional mono white problem of not enough card draw and getting stuck in top deck limbo and, due to the loss of Extraplanar Lens, didn't have enough mana to both cast the Oketra they drew and kill Drana. They wisely killed Drana so they wouldn't die. While Oketra had the highest life total with blind obedience extort triggers and a Soul Warden in play to replace the since deceased Soul's Attendant, they were definitely the least threatening at this point.

Drana recast their commander and dropped a Meteor Golem smashing my reservoir. Stupid golem.

Since Drana entered tapped b/c of Blind Obedience I was able to play Sunforger, equip, unattach it fetching Boros Charm, give Kykar double strike, and re-equip before swinging at Drana for 14 commander damage. I just wasn't worried about Oketra at this point and prioritized threatening lethal at Drana next turn, but in hindsight this was a lot of mana that I could have just used to crack the Past in Flames that I looted ages ago and play most of the instant/sorceries in my yard and gotten a ton of spirits and servos.

Drana reassembled a board state, killed Saheeli, and had the shields up, but fortunately Skullclamp had gotten me a handful of cards over the past couple of turns and I had action. The plan was to Electrodominance for 5, killing Anowon and putting Metallurgic Summonings into play before casting Honor the Fallen for some lifegain. That all would have been fine if I'd done it BEFORE Drana's upkeep, or if I didn't have to sac spirits in order to afford it. As it was, I did it all in response to the Anowon trigger and left myself with Kykar and a single spirit to sac to Anowon's trigger. . . but I had forgotten about Strionic Resonator which hadn't copied anything other than Sword of the Animist triggers earlier in the game. So, back down to 0 creatures I went, and the lifegain from Honor the Fallen wasn't enough to keep a massive Exsanguinate and vampire attack step from taking me out. Drana took out Oketra on the next turn cycle without any issue.
Takeaways:

- Tragic Arrogance is really good.

- I need to, you know, actually read cards I'm testing in the deck before I play them :crazy: :crazy: :crazy: I resolved a Mission Briefing for zero value at one point in the game. I get so used to playing cantrips that I just assumed it drew me a card. It doesn't. So I kept two lands on top when I should have binned at least one. I didn't want to waste the flashback obviously, so I resolved the Frantic Search I had targeted and didn't get any deeper into the library. Dumb dumb dumb.

- Spirits come and go so easily in this deck with Skullclamp and Kykar's ability being so awesome, but I need to be more careful around edict effects. At least twice in this game I got burned by not leaving enough 1/1's to both block and then sac to Eldrazi Monument or Anowon, the Ruin Sage. I can avoid the blowouts easily enough, I just need to prioritize leaving 3-4 spirits around when some sacrifice effect is on board instead of 1-2.

- Paying attention to on board effects would be helpful :crazy: Had I seen the interaction between Anowon and Strionic Resonator I could have played around it and had the game in the bag.

- Past in Flames is really tricky to play with. Sometimes it is painfully obvious when it is worth flashing back, but there was at least twice in this game where I could have done so for great value but didn't take the time to really look at my yard and think through the sequencing. I need to slow down and consider my graveyard as a second hand.

- The SunforgerBoros Charm for double strike → re-equip before attacking trick for a 2 turn commander damage kill is cute and all, but it's a ton of mana to invest if I'm not *positive* that it will result in the kill. In other words, it was really bad to even attempt this against an opponent with a flying blocker available in the command zone, even with Blind Obedience slowing things down. I could have spent that mana for more value elsewhere and/or held up a sunforger activation.

It was a fun game, but I think I played it quite poorly. There were some good lessons learned though.

On a separate note, here are some changes I'm considering after [mention]OCPunisher[/mention]'s last post got me thinking and I'd love any input:

Gitaxian ProbeOpt
Thought ScourVisions of Beyond
ImpulseChart a Course

Nothing too exciting from Theros spoilers yet. Staggering Insight on Kykar could be cute for the trigger, lifegain, and card draw, but I don't think it's better than Bident of Thassa, which I don't currently have as good enough to run. Medomai's Prophecy is cute, but I don't think I'm in the market for it in this list. We're still early on spoilers though!
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Post by OCPunisher » 4 years ago

- Tragic Arrogance: Isn't it great?!?
- Past in Flames: I recently sent a message to the EDHREC cast about Yawgmoth's Will that I think also applies to this card. At first, I only thought it was useful for making a big ol' pile of storm counts. However, I recalled how Legacy Elves players sometimes have to do a "value-Glimpse", and I think that's the role that Past and Will were meant for in this format.
- I think the biggest role of Boros Charm is going to be to protect your board from removal. And by "your board" I mean important things like Impact Tremors and Sunforger, not a pile of tokens you can get back.
- on the cantrips: I've only tested Opt, and it's solid. Instant-speed versus an extra scry with some others. Chart a Course seems way better than Impulse, cuz who doesn't have one token to throw away? Given the relative lack of recursion in these colors, I'm loathe to play Thought Scour, but you're running some delve stuff so it's probably decent.

EDIT: one more thing I've been thinking about updating is the set of three Temple scry lands. They would either become the three Shadowmoor filter lands or a Prairie Stream and the two MH canopy lands. Thoughts on any of those?
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

I would (and do) absolutely run filters over temples. At least the ones I own. Once in a blue moon they can screw you over, but it's super rare.

I haven't played the mh1 lands, but painlands with upside seem good.
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Post by OCPunisher » 4 years ago

Managed to play just one game with Kykar last night, and while it wasn't the most competitive game, I did learn a few things:
- Tragic Arrogance is still really good. Set it and forget it. Usually the worst-case scenario is you have to dump a few non-Spirit tokens and cut back on your mana rocks, but most of the time it ends up being your best stuff vs their worst stuff.
- Aria of Flame is not where I want to be. In a standard pod, your opponents gain a total of 30 life, which means you would have to cast 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8 spells just to break even, assuming absolutely no interaction whatsoever.
- Search for Azcanta was mildly impressive. I got it to flip pretty easily, and then it just drew me an extra card of my choice (again with the "my choice" theme) every turn. However, it's certainly possible that you won't want to dump something into the yard because you want to draw it, or you won't want to hold up the three mana plus this land (four in total). So, it's still iffy.
- I'm starting to cool off of Metallurgic Summonings. The average CMC of this deck is very small, and the average CMC of the qualifying instants/sorceries in this deck is even smaller (for me, anyways).
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Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

I ended up building a Kykar deck because I kind of wanted to revisit my Shu Yun, spellslinger deck. And we are doing a league so I figured this deck might be fun to give a shot. I doubt I will keep it together for too long, so I won't create a thread for it, but I like what I see here so far.
OCPunisher wrote:
4 years ago
Search for Azcanta was mildly impressive. I got it to flip pretty easily, and then it just drew me an extra card of my choice (again with the "my choice" theme) every turn. However, it's certainly possible that you won't want to dump something into the yard because you want to draw it, or you won't want to hold up the three mana plus this land (four in total). So, it's still iffy.
I ended up not including this in mine basically for the reasons you mentioned. It is great if it transforms, but the curve seems low enough that spending 4 mana "just" to Impulse seem weaker than we want to be. Even if it is repeatable. Perhaps it is still worth it, but it doesn't do a lot on its own until it transforms.
I'm starting to cool off of Metallurgic Summonings. The average CMC of this deck is very small, and the average CMC of the qualifying instants/sorceries in this deck is even smaller (for me, anyways).
This is exactly why I cut this card when modifying my old Shu Yun deck. I had it in there and it was pretty good but I also had a few higher costs spells so I got some bigger creatures. Also, trying to keep track of all the tokens was kind of a pain anyway.

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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

WizardMN wrote:
4 years ago
I ended up building a Kykar deck because I kind of wanted to revisit my Shu Yun, spellslinger deck. And we are doing a league so I figured this deck might be fun to give a shot.
Welcome to the Bird Wizard club! :cool:

I also ran Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest many moons ago. He was great fun on the turn I went off, and it wasn't unusual to take someone out on turn 5 or 6, but the problem I always ran into was double strike voltron-ing someone out fast and immediately becoming everyone else's target. I didn't know how to play politically or threat assess very well back then, and Shu Yun requires some tact if you plan on taking on the entire table.

I understand y'alls perspective on Metallurgic Summonings, and I may come around to that as well someday, but I've found the preponderance of small tokens to be fine, especially since I'm running Jeskai Ascendancy, Eldrazi Monument, and Unbreakable Formation. Also, Hour of Reckoning is one of the best cards in the deck which I frequently get back with Mystic Retrieval, Past in Flames, and the like, and it goes great with Summonings.

The real clincher for me though is the buyback activation after you get enough artifacts out, which is easy enough with Summonings in play and trivially easy with Brudiclad or Saheeli in play as well. If I ever take it out I would have to justify it with something pretty high impact like Kyren Negotiations.

Edit: I just saw a new card from the Theros theme boosters that aren't in the actual TBD set, and it could be worth a few test games, although I wish it were a non-creature: Victory's Envoy
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

Some changes:
12/26/19
Approximate Total Cost:

I took to heart comments about Metallurgic Summonings, and even though I defended it, I see why others are hesitant to run it. Since it can certainly underperform, I'll take it out for the time being in order to test out Settle the Wreckage. I'm not running many board wipes, and this bolsters that. . . sort of. It only wipes one players board, and it ramps them, but I think I can get some serious versatility out of this. First, instant speed makes this great for this list since I can attack with 3-5 tokens pretty early in the game, then target myself with Settle after combat damage is dealt, but while it is still my combat step to ramp in a big way. Second, I can see situations where I swing out with an army of fliers, leaving myself open to attack, but I can StW a lethal attack in my direction at a point in the game where the ramp is no longer relevant because I will deal lethal on the crackback. I'm excited to see if it can be as good as I hope it can.

Return to Dust has had me thinking for a while now. It's really at it's best when played at sorcery speed, and the cost is tough sometimes. I'm going to roll with Forsake the Worldly for the instant speed, slightly cheaper, and never a dead draw version of this effect.

Thought Scour can help fuel my delve and flashback/recursion spells, but I think some more raw card advantage (at least some of the time) from Visions of Beyond is worth the swap.

Impulse was already one of the more expensive cantrip effects I was running, so I thought I'd just try some card advantage for the same cost in Chart a Course.

I am really hesitant to pull out any card draw/selection effects without replacing them with something functionally similar at this point since the deck relies on chaining together lots of cheap spells, but Sleight of Hand really does nothing apart from keeping the chain going at sorcery speed, and I've had my eye on Role Reversal for a while and finally got a copy. I may just take it right back out if it's a dead or weak draw too often, but I have visions of swapping my Mind Stone for someone's Gilded Lotus, or a token for a Sun Titan.

I do have Brought Back on the radar as well [mention]OCPunisher[/mention], but I don't know what I'd take out for it. Have you had any experience with it in your list yet?

I've been busy playing my new Brudiclad and Elsha decks lately and haven't played a Kykar game in the past week or two. I will remedy that soon enough with the new inclusions in the deck!
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Post by shermanido37 » 4 years ago

A creature that I've come to respect is Nin, the Pain Artist. She's great with your tokens because you can dump a bunch of Mana into her ability at instant speed and draw a bunch of cards, plus she's (bad) removal if you really need it.
There's also a card that's great with them both but might be win-more, and that's Illusionist's Bracers. It doubles the Mana you get from Kykar and the cards you get from Nin. It also works on The Locust God, but that's pretty meh.

Two cards that strike me as potential cuts are Brudiclad and Chart a Course. Brudiclad is expensive and you don't have a lot of fat tokens to abuse him, and Chart is bad if you're on the defense which seems to be most of the time.

Surprised you're not running Talisman of Progress in place of one of the diamonds. Also Isochron Scepter's spells trigger Kykar, so I see no harm in running it, even if you would have to increase your instant count, since it seems you'd want to do that anyway.

EDIT: Fight to the Death seems awesome. Why not give it a whirl? Mandate of Peace looks sick. Pulse of the Fields practically has Buyback so it's a great spell to sling. I can personally attest to Unexpectedly Absent's power.

EDIT 2: Sephara, Sky's Blade seems like a great creature that's reliability cast for cheap and that provides wrath insurance, as well as a giant lifelinking body which definitely has its uses.
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Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

Note that Illusionist's Bracers won't work on Kykar's ability since it is a mana ability.

I don't like Chart a Course either as I prefer Instant Timing spells. I really think Impulse is the better card there. While Impulse is, as mentioned, really just a cantrip, it lets us see 4 cards to determine what we want. I think I would rather have that as an Instant over Chart a Course as a Sorcery. An alternative is Perilous Research. While it is much worse on an empty board, it is always draw 2 cards and, with token producers, you should often have something to sacrifice. It doesn't really let you get out of a jam on an empty board, so I am not sure.

Brudiclad is interesting. Especially with Saheeli. Saheeli can turn a token into anything and then Brudiclad can turn all your tokens into that same thing. I do agree though that there aren't enough big hitters for that and 6 mana for 1 token per turn just doesn't seem like enough. Maybe if there were big things like Crackling Drake and then something like Feldon of the Third Path that could make tokens of it Brudiclad would be more worth it. But, with the current list, I think Brudiclad is an easy cut. And it doesn't seem like the haste would be all that relevant but maybe I am missing how often an army is created on your turn.

I am trying out Purphoros in your Impact Tremors slot. It is a little more expensive but I think it is much better to close out games and it is much harder to remove.

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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer has a bit more utility in this list than you may think. As mentioned, the dream is to have him and Saheeli, Sublime Artificer 1-2 punch the table by making a servo into a copy of Wurmcoil Engine or some other big nasty, then turn all my tokens into that. I've had him turn all my spirits into prowess monks before storming off during my combat step. He's amazing with Divine Visitation, not only making newly made angels hasty, but also upgrading smaller tokens into 4/4 flyers. He can make several 1/1 Elementals, servos, or what have you into spirits for the evasion as well as a bunch of extra sac mana after combat. Basically, his one token per turn and haste anthem is the floor and not the primary reasons he is in the deck, but I do pull an army out of nowhere at sorcery speed on my own turn often enough that it IS helpful.

All that said, I will keep all your very valid points in mind and may test something else in that slot. It's absolutely true that Brudiclad just doesn't do enough on his own, but is great as a supporting creature.

I LOVE Nin, the Pain Artist! She was my first Izzet commander! I hadn't considered her too seriously here because I'm trying to keep a critical mass of non-creatures in the deck. If I ever take Brudiclad out, Nin may get the nod. The only reason I hesitate is that she is slow, despite being so affordable. You essentially want to play her, then have her survive at least one round of the table due to summoning sickness, but preferably 2 until you can nuke some poor token for as much mana as you can afford during your last opponent's end step. She's much better in her own list with multiple haste enablers and targets like Stuffy Doll, but you've certainly got me considering her. . . I could use more raw card advantage.

I like Fight to the Death and considered it when I was first building. Best case scenario: I block several huge creatures with tokens, cast FttD and sac spirits for mana in response (or two opponents are fighting and multiple blocks are made) and get a great 2 mana X for 1. It is Sunforger friendly Worst case scenario: I'm at a table where only 1-2 players (including myself) are even bothering with a combat step. In short, I don't know if it's consistent enough to merit a slot. I may run it someday.

Mandate of Peace has a similar problem with being swingy imo. It can really hose a creature deck's post combat main, but flash and instant speed effects are so common that it can be a bit of a do-nothing. It can also functionally counter multiple spells on the stack, but not a ton of decks actively use the stack during combat in EDH.

Pulse of the Fields is interesting, but I don't know if the effect is powerful enough to make the cost worthwhile. Plus, with the double white I doubt I'll play it more than twice per turn cycle even if I want to. I like that it's an instant and doesn't put me down a card.

Unexpectedly Absent could go in the Forsake the Worldly slot to be sure, but unless I have mana to throw at the cost this could just be a speed bump and I think I just prefer to outright exile something. It works with Sunforger as I understand the rules interactions, but as I said that could just be a small speedbump.

Sephara, Sky's Blade is indeed powerful, but again I'm trying to keep creature count low. She may be worth it, I dunno. Perhaps another option for testing in Brudiclad's slot?

With just one token engine in play, Perilous Research is a strict upgrade over Chart a Course. . . how did I not know this card existed :crazy: I'll have to get a copy.

Purphoros is absolutely better than Impact Tremors. I just hate him and refuse to shell out the $$$ :P I really only put tremors in the deck begrudgingly as a win con that doesn't involve combat. As a rule I don't like really non-interactive stuff. Just personal preference. If you're looking to optimize, go with Purphoros or both! Let me know how your league goes!
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Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

I played a game with my list tonight and I basically only had Kykar on the battlefield for the longest time. I did end up getting Purphoros down but he only did 2 or 4 damage. But, this was because I ended up Ultimating Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and then casting a Pull from Tomorrow for 11 cards to exile 11 cards. They couldn't deal with the emblem and the tokens just gave me so much mana to work with.

I am not sure Teferi is right for this deck but man is he fun :)

Otherwise, I was able to build an army with just Kykar. My main issue was early on when I had a handful of mostly reactive spells. Emerge Unscathed (which saved Kykar once), Valorous Stance, Boros Charm, and a couple others. It is tough to go too low on these since losing Kykar hurts a lot. Especially for me since I only have 2 other token producers. I might try to find some more room for cantrips and card draw though.

On another note: what are your thoughts on Command Beacon? I realize in a 3 color deck it is tough to go too high on colorless lands, but Beacon might be worth it if Kykar dies too often so we can cast him again a bit easier.

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