Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger: A Take on Titan - No Escape from The Rack

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toctheyounger
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Post by toctheyounger » 3 years ago

KitsuLeif wrote:
3 years ago
New playgroup, new meta.
Kroxa does what he can, but it's incredibly hard to survive against attack-oriented decks, so I'm pondering what to do against those.
Cards like Caltrops, Crawlspace and Smoke come to mind, but I don't know if this is enough. The hate that this deck draws is real (and I'm not surprised by it).
Also, I want to Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, because I feel like most of the time I don't need this chunky daddy.
I wonder if something like Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs would suffice to take some of the heat for you? There's always things like Mizzium Mortars too; or you could run a simple ETB direct damage source like Chaos Maw. Alternately something like Pestilence could be great here. I guess it sort of depends what combat looks like for you, whether its a swarm or fatties coming your way,
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KitsuLeif
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Post by KitsuLeif » 3 years ago

It's either Edgar Markov, Thantis, the Warweaver or Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale decks which are attacking me constantly. Last time I didn't even get to my fifth land drop, when I was dead (Tree of Predition brought down my life total then getting attacked over two turns was everything it needed).

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Post by toctheyounger » 3 years ago

Those are really different decks in terms of shape and size! Well, other than what I've suggested above maybe Sudden Spoiling or Black Sun's Zenith could help? Otherwise, considering you're leaning heavily into discard, perhaps Archfiend of Ifnir could put in some work? It shreds boards for me in Varina, Lich Queen and Dralnu, Lich Lord where I do a reasonable amount of wheeling. Dralnu is a pretty creature light build too, so has similarities here. The reason I like Archfiend of Ifnir so much is it works for indestructible, hexproof, gods, anything on board. Even if it can shrink creatures it's pretty strong.
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Post by KitsuLeif » 3 years ago

Same problem like with Kazuul. CMC of 5 is hard to pull off, when you are dead before your fifth land drop :/
Also I don't discard as much in this deck, so Archfiend won't do a lot.

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Post by toctheyounger » 3 years ago

KitsuLeif wrote:
3 years ago
Same problem like with Kazuul. CMC of 5 is hard to pull off, when you are dead before your fifth land drop :/
Also I don't discard as much in this deck, so Archfiend won't do a lot.
Yeah, you really need some early game deterrents. There's Koskun Falls, but I suspect it won't do much. Thought about just adding in things like Toxic Deluge/Last One Standing? Seems like you would recover better than most from wipes. I know from my time playing Edgar Markov he takes a fair amount of time to recover post wipe.

Other than that, Glacial Chasm is great old school tech. I love it in my Nissa, Vastwood Seer // Nissa, Sage Animist build and I've got it lined up to drop into Tayam, Luminous Enigma shortly too.
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Post by KitsuLeif » 3 years ago

Yeah, Glacial Chasm sounds reasonable, although I normally hate playing it without Solemnity. But I already have Last One Standing in my list. Maybe I should add Toxic Deluge, when I have the budget for it.

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Post by toctheyounger » 3 years ago

Yeah, I get that. It'll be nice in Tayam, Luminous Enigma purely for only ever costing me 2 life per turn. But in this deck I think you just drop it when you need to and let it give you some time to build, and once it's done its job let it die. The initial land sacrifice is not ideal, but it seems worth it regardless.

Toxic Deluge is grossly overpriced, sadly. I personally wouldn't shell out for it purely because it really just needs a reprint to hit a reasonable price again. You never know, with Commander Legends at the end of the year it could see a reprint.

Seems a little janky, but would something like Arcbond help for early attacks? Chump block the biggest fatty you can and blast everything else at the same time. It's a lot cheaper, and if you can guarantee an early creature in play it could be worth a test.
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Post by KitsuLeif » 3 years ago

I've slotted in Caltrops, Pyroclasm, Glacial Chasm, another Mountain and Black Sun's Zenith for now and will report, when I get to play next time.

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Post by KitsuLeif » 3 years ago

Long time no see. The past months were tough for Kroxa. Not only weren't there a lot of new cards for the deck, but this list went through some big changes and I struggled to keep this thread up to date with all the cards I swapped until I was finally happy with how the deck performed.
Ready for the big overhaul? Here we go:

I will try to implement the changes and work over the primer in the next few days, as I have to write new descriptions and probably have to make a new header, because this is not "12-Rack" anymore, unfortunately, as I removed the four Rack-creatures. But hey, at least it looks like in Kaldheim, there are some juicy new toys for Kroxa and I hope to keep this list updated now that I'm happy with how it plays. Even though I'm not able to play much since a while...

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Post by KitsuLeif » 3 years ago

So, with Kaldheim on the horizon, there are only a few new cards I want to talk about.

Blightstep Pathway // Searstep Pathway - Obviously, the new MDFC land is awesome and I'll try to get my hands on one.
Immersturm Skullcairn - A land that comes into play tapped and needs to be sacced for its second activated ability, which is, in all honesty, not worth running it, I think.
Tergrid, God of Fright // Tergrid's Lantern - Who cares about the Lantern? Tergrid is the real deal. A discard AND sacrifice payoff is exactly what this deck wants. It sounds stupidly good. But of course the Lantern can be awesome as well...

And that's it for now. Not a lot of new stuff for Kroxa, but a very powerful new tool. The primer is updated and now I try to figure out what to cut for Tergrid. Can't wait to playtest!

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Post by KitsuLeif » 3 years ago

I've made the following changes to my list:
Latest Changes to the Main Build
Approximate Total Cost:

I can't wait to try Tergrid. It's been 6 months since I last played MtG and I really want to torture show my playgroup how much I missed playing the game.

Next up on the horizon is Strixhaven, but given that there is no Rakdos-colored faction I'm not expecting much from it for Kroxa.

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Post by KitsuLeif » 3 years ago

Now that the full spoiler for Strixhaven is out, I will go over the possible inclusions for Kroxa.

Ardent Dustspeaker - This Minotaur Shaman could give us the possibility of reusing our reanimation spells. So... reanimation spell for reanimation spell with every attack. But for a Mana Value of 5, it has to compete with way more impactful cards in this deck, like Tergrid, God of Fright or Lifeline. I'm not seeing it in the main build, but maybe it could be useful in the budget build since that one lacks Lifeline and needs more reanimation, but since it puts them on the bottom of the library, I don't think it's worth considering.
Efreet Flamepainter - This one feels quite similar, except that we have to exile the reused reanimation spells after casting them and it has to connect to do so. I don't think, it fits into this deck.
Flunk - Nice budget removal for indestructible creatures. So maybe another one for the budget build.
Go Blank - This one is weird. I like that it exiles the graveyard after letting the player discard. I just feel like it won't fit in, since the list is already too tight.


Wow... that would have been disappointing, if I had expected anything cool for Kroxa from this set. Maybe the budget list will get some minor changes, to get even cheaper. But apart from that I have nothing to change in the main list at the moment.
Last edited by KitsuLeif 2 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by benjameenbear » 2 years ago

Congrats on your Primer status! Well deserved!

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Post by KitsuLeif » 2 years ago

Thank you for granting me the Primer status, I am so happy it finally got approved!

Yesterday, after eight months of not being able to play Magic, I finally could play again. And obviously I had to play at least one game with Kroxa. And boyy, what a game that was.
It was a 3-player game and my opponents were Golos, Tireless Pilgrim Superfriends and Lord Windgrace MLD. Sounds like a fun match-up, doesn't it?

I was able to play Kroxa on turn 2 but I didn't have a reanimation spell in my hand, so turn 3 I played Dark Deal, because the rest of my hand was also pretty useless. Meanwhile, Golos and Windgrace were in their build-up phase, Golos playing Aminatou, the Fateshifter and ticked her up to save a card from getting discarded every turn. Meanwhile Lord Windgrace hit the board and kept on discarding and drawing cards. I had to do something.
Mirror of the Forebears was exactly what I needed. I played that and Phyrexian Reclamation on turn 4 and turn 5 I finally was able to land two discard triggers with Kroxa. Turn 7 I played a Lifeline (which I should have done a turn earlier, but I messed up and just got Kroxa back for two more triggers).
Golos had hit the board already and was activated, getting two Planeswalkers and Possibility Storm. Which would have been a problem, if Windgrace couldn't already ult, which he did in that turn. Life totals were still pretty high, because except for a few 1-power attacks and one or two Kroxa land discards nothing had really happened yet.
Turn 8 I was finally being able to reanimate Kroxa with Animate Dead and get him into the Lifeline loop. From then on it went wild. Life totals went down faster, and I was able to put down a Necropotence that turn as well, which I used to refill my hand. Syr Konrad, the Grim and Reanimate stood out from the cards I got. From my Dark Deal discard earlier, I still had a Rankle, Master of Pranks in my graveyard.
Turn 9 was brutal. I cast Syr Konrad and Reanimate on Rankle. Now, with Lifeline and Kroxa in the Loop, it was just a matter of time until my opponents would die from the constant damage I was shooting. But I didn't have time. Windgrace had assembled 20 5/5 Elementals from Omnath, Locus of Rage with Splendid Reclamation. I had a problem. I attacked the Golos player with Rankle, choosing that everybody had to draw a card and lose 1 life and also everyone had to sacrifice a creature. (Opponents life totals were now pretty low, because of all the triggers from Kroxa.)
I sacced Rankle, so he would come back from Lifeline. Syr Konrad triggered from all that stuff, getting the life totals even lower.
Golos's turn, he attacked me with everything. I blocked one of the 9/9 Krakens from his Kiora, the Crashing Wave's emblem with Rankle and Golos with Syr Konrad, still taking 16 damage, so my life total was down to 4 as well now. Golos ended his turn, Kroxa and Rankle came back, lowering Golos's life total to 6 and Windgrace's to 1. One frickin point... Windgrace prepared to go into his turn, wanted to just swing at both of us... but wait! He didn't draw for turn yet. And he had an Underrealm Lich in play. If there were two creatures in those three cards, Syr Konrad would kill him with his trigger. So he went to draw, when I remembered something... Golos had discarded a creature for the Kroxa trigger which I hadn't noticed at the end of his turn and since Windgrace just went into his turn, without doing something yet, I thought, I should bring that up...
And that was basically the end of the game. Windgrace died to the trigger (there was so much going on, he was a little salty "I'm still seeing myself as the winner.", because he forgot a lot of triggers himself, it was pretty intense and we were almost 2 hours in the game and it was already 2AM). In my turn I couldn't attack Golos because there was a fresh Atraxa, Praetors' Voice flying around, so I just ended the turn. Kroxa came back, Syr Konrad triggered, Kroxa died, Syr Konrad triggered and since he had no cards in hand, he took 3 more damage from the Kroxa trigger. Perfect 0.

It was such a close one and it was so much fun to play again and I wouldn't have minded if the Windgrace player had insisted on my missed trigger, but he took it with gritting teeth, so it was fine. So yeah... don't miss your triggers. He felt like I took his rightful victory away and I understand his reasoning. I really have to get better at keeping my concentration up until the very last minute of the game.
But Kroxa still works and is fun to play, so I wanted to write down this game report.

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Post by KitsuLeif » 2 years ago

I think it's time for my Modern Horizons 2 review for Kroxa, now that the set is coming out at the end of this week:

Archon of Cruelty - This one was so close to being an auto-include. So close... if it weren't for the "target opponent". Is it too much to ask for an "each" opponent for a Mana Value of 8? It's still a strong card and I will likely test it, because it's card draw and lifegain that this deck still lacks a bit of. But it's a bummer that it doesn't say each opponent x.x
Break the Ice - A strong land wipe, depending on the meta. I will probably not run it in my version, but if you face a lot of colorless decks or decks that play a lot of snow lands for "style" this is the card for you.
Dauthi Voidwalker - This card is powerful. Maybe even too powerful? It synergizes well with both the reanimator and the discard theme of the deck and with a Lifeline out it becomes even more powerful. Good thing that this card doesn't have Haste, otherwise it would be completely busted.
Necrogoyf - Necrogen Mists with a body. Sometimes this deck needs more creatures, but creatures are also easier to remove (but in this deck also easier to get them back) than enchantments. I'm undecided, because MV of 5 is quite high, but if I can discard it and cast it for its madness costs, it gets way better.
Persist - Doesn't work with Kroxa unfortunately, so I think I'll pass :/
Tourach, Dread Cantor - One of the cards I anticipated the most for this deck and it turns out to be very disappointing :/
Young Necromancer - Budget build material, but nothing for the main build.

So yeah, some new possible toys, but unfortunately nothing that is really exciting.

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Post by benjameenbear » 2 years ago

I 100% agree with you about Archon of Cruelty. Cruel Ultimatum is my favorite card of all-time and they were so close to printing a good version of it... and then they didn't. Sigh...

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Post by demonicpic » 2 years ago

Great primer! I think I'm going to sleeve this up myself. I read that you didn't include Liliana of the Veil for budget reasons, but what would you swap out if you wanted to include her? Thank you for posting your primer!

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Post by KitsuLeif » 2 years ago

In Retrospect Liliana of the Veil is probably not the best choice for the deck. Letting each player discard a card is nice, but since the deck is pretty creature-light, Lili has no protection against any form of attacks, so she won't stay long enough to make her inclusion worth it. At least that's how I feel about her. If you were to test her, I'd replace Necrogen Mists with her.

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Post by demonicpic » 2 years ago

KitsuLeif wrote:
2 years ago
At least that's how I feel about her. If you were to test her, I'd replace Necrogen Mists with her.
Nah, you're the expert, I'll try it the way you think is best. I sleeved up the cards I had last night and ordered the ones I needed, I'm really looking forward to trying it out. Btw, I thought it was really sweet how many reserved list cards you had in there, I don't get to play with those that often. I'm just curious, are those effects unique to the RL cards, or are you using those for style points? Either way, I really dig you list. Thank you for sharing it!

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Post by KitsuLeif » 2 years ago

demonicpic wrote:
2 years ago
Btw, I thought it was really sweet how many reserved list cards you had in there, I don't get to play with those that often. I'm just curious, are those effects unique to the RL cards, or are you using those for style points? Either way, I really dig you list. Thank you for sharing it!
Corpse Dance and Shallow Grave are both unique in that they reanimate the top creature card of your graveyard for a pretty low cost and at instant speed, which most of the time will be Kroxa, so it doesn't matter that he would be exiled, because since he got reanimated, he dies immediately again. Buyback on Corpse Dance is pretty good as well.
Lifeline is just a powerhouse with Kroxa and it's pretty unique. Only Liliana, Defiant Necromancer's Emblem has a similar effect, but getting to her Emblem isn't what this deck is good in^^°
Pauper's Cage and Storm World are both Rack pieces that aren't on creatures, so they are harder to remove. Since I want most of the Rack pieces, these two are pretty much needed, but not "unique". Up until now, I didn't even knew Pauper's Cage was a RL card, lul...

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Post by KitsuLeif » 2 years ago

There is another new set, right? They are pushing out so many these days...

Asmodeus the Archfiend - If you don't own a Necropotence, this is your creature-based replacement. It can be easily recurred, but it's also easier to destroy. I won't play it in the main build, but it's certainly a card to consider for the budget build.
Lorcan, Warlock Collector - If we had a way to gain more life, this would be a good inclusion. But being the prime target at the table, I wouldn't consider it.

Oh wow... AFR and AFC were a real bummer in terms of cards for Kroxa. But don't worry, in less than two months there is already the next set with potentially good cards.

In regards to inclusions from MH2:
I think, it's safe to buy Dauthi Voidwalker now that Hullbreacher got banned.
Latest Changes to the Main Build
Approximate Total Cost:

In a creature-light deck like Kroxa, it's probably better to get to play opponents' cards instead of trying to get combat damage in. With all the discard we have, it shouldn't be that hard to find some better card draw spells from our opponents with Dauthi Voidwalker.

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Post by KitsuLeif » 2 years ago

Midnight Hunt is almost there, but this time I haven't seen a card I want to include at first look... so let's take a deeper look into the set:

Gisa, Glorious Resurrector - Gets around Lifeline and gets those creatures that Tergrid, God of Fright misses. I like this one and consider it for my list.
Haunted Ridge - Another good dual land for the mid-game.

And that's it. Well, at least for now. Maybe there's something the in Zombie Precon on Monday, but I doubt it...

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Post by nobody » 2 years ago

what about the new demon Lord of the Forsaken ? seems like real strong!

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KitsuLeif
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Post by KitsuLeif » 2 years ago

How so? It's just a flying trampler for 6. Of course, I can pay and sacrifice Kroxa to mill someone for 3, but except for Kroxa and Claim // Fame there are no cards that I could directly cast from the graveyard. And I don't even want to cast the Fame side. And Kroxa needs colored mana to be cast for its escape costs.

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Post by nobody » 2 years ago

sorry I misread, thought it generated black mana , wells there's always Chromatic Orrery ]]

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