Winota - Assemble the Humans

[ISBPathfinder]

Well, that was quick. Winota, Joiner of Forces got spoiled today and I got to work on it more or less right away. I started out by filtering through all the humans and my starting point was like 60 humans and from there I shaved it down to where it is now which is about 20 humans. I go a little bug eyed trying to do probability even when trying to use an app for that but pulling 6 cards deep for a 20/99 per card seems like fairly decent chances to get a single card from.

Once I got my humans figured out I started looking for 3 or less mana non humans which I found a few I liked but really not that many. I dug into some one shot token production from there and found a lot more things to my liking. So, I guess I am sort of on the polymorph token style of a build with the only oddity being that my payoffs need to be high in number.

I last second threw in a shuffle eldrazi because honestly it seems like I maybe want some means of shuffling my grave back in and I am not a fan of most of the crappy little baubles that do stuff like that.

I guess this is what I would call the quick and dirty.

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

COMMANDER (1)

1 Winota, Joiner of Forces

CREATURES (29)

1 Dragonmaster Outcast

1 Weathered Wayfarer

1 Loyal Apprentice

1 Selfless Spirit

1 Bastion Protector

1 Goblin Rabblemaster

1 Legion Warboss

1 Mirror Entity

1 Prophetic Flamespeaker

1 Verge Rangers

1 Anger

1 Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero

1 Hero of Bladehold

1 Iroas, God of Victory

1 Marton Stromgald

1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar

1 Adriana, Captain of the Guard

1 Geist-Honored Monk

1 Reverent Hoplite

1 Victory's Envoy

1 Aurelia, the Warleader

1 Captain of the Watch

1 Crovax, Ascendant Hero

1 Evangel of Heliod

1 Homura, Human Ascendant

1 Lena, Selfless Champion

1 Silverwing Squadron

1 Angrath's Marauders

1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

ARTIFACT (9)

1 Mana Crypt

1 Sensei's Divining Top

1 Sol Ring

1 Wayfarer's Bauble

1 Arcane Signet

1 Boros Signet

1 Mind Stone

1 Scroll Rack

1 Mind's Eye

ENCHANTMENT (4)

1 Land Tax

1 Legion's Landing

1 Reconnaissance

1 Omen of the Sun

INSTANT (12)

1 Secure the Wastes

1 Raise the Alarm

1 Chaos Warp

1 Flawless Maneuver

1 Generous Gift

1 Master's Call

1 Midnight Haunting

1 Rootborn Defenses

1 Waylay

1 White Sun's Zenith

1 Benevolent Offering

1 Take Up Arms

SORCERY (5)

1 Firecat Blitz

1 Indomitable Creativity

1 Decree of Justice

1 Descent of the Dragons

1 Warp World

PLANESWALKER

LAND (40)

1 Arid Mesa

1 Battlefield Forge

1 Blinkmoth Nexus

1 Bloodstained Mire

1 Castle Ardenvale

1 Castle Embereth

1 Clifftop Retreat

1 Command Tower

1 Dwarven Mine

1 Fabled Passage

1 Field of the Dead

1 Flooded Strand

1 Hanweir Battlements

1 Inkmoth Nexus

1 Kher Keep

1 Marsh Flats

1 Mishra's Factory

3 Mountain

1 Myriad Landscape

1 Needle Spires

4 Plains

1 Plateau

1 Prismatic Vista

1 Sacred Foundry

1 Scalding Tarn

1 Slayers' Stronghold

2 Snow-Covered Mountain

3 Snow-Covered Plains

1 Sunbaked Canyon

1 Winding Canyons

1 Windswept Heath

1 Wooded Foothills

Approximate Total Cost:

CONSIDERATIONS:

• Warstorm Surge - I guess my concern is that its big, slow, and a big target. Ideally if I have my commander + some token stuff setup I could drop it and flip a bunch of humans into play. I just find this card to be slow and die a lot.
• Purphoros, God of the Forge - Obviously with some of the token / polymorph kinda stuff he could be nice. He is high on my get this guy in here list. My only concern is how many elements already go into this deck in getting the commander out, getting some non humans, getting to combat and not losing everything to blockers or wraths.
• Benalish Marshal / Kongming, "Sleeping Dragon" - I like that they are humans with unconditional buffs. That said, I don't know how much I value +1/+1 in general. You usually have to go fairly wide before these anthems start looking good. I have a number of humans that enter and make 2-3 tokens for instance and I would generally say I would want like 5 other bodies being buffed before I generally find them to be just like, ok.

[pokken]

I like a lot of stuff about this build. I feel like you might benefit from the new purphoros purphoros, bronze-blooded as he's a way to cheat your expensive guys in hasted and vomit out tokens and get triggers.

Lots of times spending 3 mana to drop an aurelia the warleader out and get 2 triggers is going to just win the game, and it's much grosser if you do it with aurelia and hero of bladehold, for example.

I do think the deck could probably benefit from both recruiters.

Lookin good man

[MeowZeDung]

I enjoy this very much!

Thoughts on Divine Visitation and Anointed Procession? More and bigger and evasive non-human attackers seems ideal.

[ISBPathfinder]

I like a lot of stuff about this build. I feel like you might benefit from the new purphoros purphoros, bronze-blooded as he's a way to cheat your expensive guys in hasted and vomit out tokens and get triggers.

Lots of times spending 3 mana to drop an aurelia the warleader out and get 2 triggers is going to just win the game, and it's much grosser if you do it with aurelia and hero of bladehold, for example.

I do think the deck could probably benefit from both recruiters.

Lookin good man

purphoros, bronze-blooded - Keep in mind his cheat only puts red creatures and artifacts to play. I went through my list and that got it down to like, 5 targets I really felt like I would maybe want to do that with. Its still a robust haste outlet so..... maybe I cut Anger for him in that I don't really have a way to kill anger but still, like its anger. Also just attacking with Anger seems good for this deck so if they don't want to kill him I guess I am still hitting for value off my commander. I contemplated a few different haste enablers but most of them didn't seem like I could justify them. I did squeeze in two haste outlet lands and one flash land option though. Lots of my token makers either make hastey tokens or can do tokens at instant speed.

Recruiters - I had them in but most of the time I just felt like I wasn't reliant enough on any specific thing to tutor. Tutoring for the non humans was generally a process that was like 5-6 mana and it didn't seem that great. I guess I was having trouble looking at my list and saying, I really want to recruiter into X or Y. I am not opposed to running them I just didn't feel like I could find anything in my list that I could add 3 mana to the casting cost of and feel great about them. Its true that it bolsters my human count but at the cost of what card? Most of my humans I don't really even want to go in my hand anyways so I guess the best case scenario for me right now seems like hitting my commander's ability into a recruiter into Selfless Spirit. Beyond that, I just don't really know what I want to maybe have to spend three mana tutoring for this deck.

If you ask me where Recruiters really shine tends to be if there is a card you really want to be tutoring or when you plan to abuse the recruiters by flickering, rezing, equipping, skullclamping, birthing poding, etc. I don't really plan to abuse them and I couldn't come up with anything I really wanted to add three mana to the cost of having.

I don't think its wrong to run them, but I felt like if I were to run them here it was just to inflate my human count and not because I actually wanted any one specific thing.

I enjoy this very much!

Thoughts on Divine Visitation and Anointed Procession? More and bigger and evasive non-human attackers seems ideal.

I think we have a lot of things going on already. They can be really cool but I had to tie up a lot of space between the human package and making tokens. Don't get me wrong, they can be great effects, I just tend to like them more when having a little less complicated of a plan. When my commander directly creates tokens for instance I tend to like them more or when having more focus soley on token production for a deck. I have a lot of elements already and these cards slow those plans down to get started.

Our commander costs four mana and does nothing on her own. So then we need some non humans to pair with her. If you add this in on top of the fact that the enchantments you mentioned don't do anything themselves... you are looking at like, T4 cast commander, T5 cast one of these, T6 hopefully have some tokens. Its just damn slow.

Essentially it feels like about double the overhead and slows us down in my mind. I went with a lot of 1-3 mana token generation so I can hopefully curve tokens into commander and swing the same turn. Those enchantments curve poorly with curving tokens.

EDIT: I need to squeeze in Mirror Entity. I had meant to do that while building then I forgot... Well I guess I will figure out where that goes.

EDIT 2: Deck Change:

• Hate Mirage → Mirror Entity I always hope to see someone with goodstuff when it comes to these red clones. People have been running a lot more odd strategies that are hard to clone value from though for me. Being a 4 mana sorcery speed token producer who kills its tokens at end of turn..... well I think maybe its not that great.

EDIT 3: Oops, was running some fetchlands that couldn't find my lands lol. I fixed my landbase mostly just shifting those to basics.

[JoeyB11223]

Had a quick scan so might be missing something but Waylay seems questionable here? You don't seem to have many ways to grant mass haste, Anger seems to be it really? and so you're going to lose these 3 tokens before they can get an attack in much of the time?

There's probably loads of options and you likely have looked at them but thinking of non-human token makers that grant haste, which I think is nice for this build, good choices look like...

Assemble the Legion- Obviously paints a target, but a nice effect for this
Chandra, Acolyte of Flame- Seems a reasonably good relevant token generator
Goblin Assault Obviously pretty much an enchantment version of Rabblemaster, the latter I can see might be a bit better for quicker impact, obviously enchantment has a bit more staying power.
Tempt with Vengeance seems a very nice one-shot trigger, Thatcher Revolt isn't bad either but this scales better.

Considerations for other decent effects or non-human creatures..

Break through the line -Cheap haste enabler and helps any decent weenies that have good on attack/damage abilities, including any humans
Flamewake Phoenix-Since the commander is 4 power I like this as reasonably reliable way to get a trigger, in say a 4 player game there's usually someone you can poke and it comes back easily.
Gingerbrute- very cheap, reasonably reliable you'll find someone this can slip through, people will be loath to waste removal on it.

[ISBPathfinder]

Had a quick scan so might be missing something but Waylay seems questionable here? You don't seem to have many ways to grant mass haste, Anger seems to be it really? and so you're going to lose these 3 tokens before they can get an attack in much of the time?

There's probably loads of options and you likely have looked at them but thinking of non-human token makers that grant haste, which I think is nice for this build, good choices look like...

Assemble the Legion- Obviously paints a target, but a nice effect for this
Chandra, Acolyte of Flame- Seems a reasonably good relevant token generator
Goblin Assault Obviously pretty much an enchantment version of Rabblemaster, the latter I can see might be a bit better for quicker impact, obviously enchantment has a bit more staying power.
Tempt with Vengeance seems a very nice one-shot trigger, Thatcher Revolt isn't bad either but this scales better.

Considerations for other decent effects or non-human creatures..

Break through the line -Cheap haste enabler and helps any decent weenies that have good on attack/damage abilities, including any humans
Flamewake Phoenix-Since the commander is 4 power I like this as reasonably reliable way to get a trigger, in say a 4 player game there's usually someone you can poke and it comes back easily.
Gingerbrute- very cheap, reasonably reliable you'll find someone this can slip through, people will be loath to waste removal on it.

• Waylay my bad, I actually thought it removed them at the next end step rather than cleanup step. I had thought I could use it to get three attackers by casting it at my opponents end step but I was wrong in what the errata was. I am not sure what I will swap it to right now but I will swap to something else. It might just end up being an Eyes in the Skies but I guess we will see what I can come up with.
• Assemble the Legion - It curves horribly and does nothing for too long. I hate slow enchantments that don't spin up quickly. It does nothing the first turn and the turn after that its still worse than a three mana Goblin Rabblemaster. Its spin up time is completely not ok and while its fun to think about several turns down the road, we are trying to combine a commander plus this plus make our board matter more. I have yet to ever see a deck that I have felt this card carries its own weight.
• Chandra, Acolyte of Flame - She could work. Paying 4 mana for two 1/1 haste tokens is just kind of... ok. My biggest issue is I don't know if I really expect to defend her. I also looked at Elspeth, Sun's Champion but I felt like ultimately I just don't plan to have many defenders and almost none of my deck flies so I felt that planeswalkers might be really weak here.
• Goblin Assault - I considered it but it felt just worse than the three mana goblins in that it doesn't put any tokens out until the next turn. I REALLY hate enchantments that do nothing until your next turn. The value return of making a single token a turn is also kind of low given its not a flying token or anything and it has to attack.
• Tempt with Vengeance - I almost included it but my issue is actually if people take the tempting offer. Like, maybe I flip my whole deck into play but its likely that just having a bunch of chump blockers stops that from doing anything to my opponents so if they just accept the tempting offer and block all the humans I am totally pants down waiting to be blown out by sweepers it feels like. Where I normally like this card is if I am running a bunch of ETB triggers and or death trigger effects to make the numbers feel more important.
• Break through the line - I would probably resort to Goblin War Drums, Dolmen Gate, or Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant before I would consider this card to be honest. Paying an extra mana per attack is kind of spendy when going swarm tactics. I put in a few effects for it but mostly I think its probably not that big of a deal for me because even if my tokens go off to their death they get me better replacement bodies and a lot of the humans come with new tokens that aren't humans.
• Flamewake Phoenix - Its probably fine. There are a lot of non humans that I didn't put a lot of consideration to that could be considered. I think when it comes to non humans that aren't tokens anything that costs three or less that is sticky / evasive are all probably fine. There are a lot of directions you can go with this though too. I added some manlands for instance to give me attack triggers on occasion when having extra mana. I could have also added Guardian Idol which ramps the commander and can trigger it to get me humans. I think the Phoenix is probably fine, but I think there are a lot of things that would fall into similar consideration for me to really be sold that the Phoenix is really where I want to be. The upside is that it cures with the commander but if you are getting pressured on your commander it could be really hard to pay an extra R on top of casting your commander to get that back into play. In that sort of situation a Rekindling Phoenix might be a little better. Lots of options that I would consider similar in playability I guess.
• Gingerbrute - He seems like maybe a budget consideration. My issue I guess is that I would consider something like Suntail Hawk to almost always have somewhere it can attack and not die and it doesn't have a cost for me to have evasion for it. The brute connecting for a single point of damage just doesn't have much value to me. I could for instance run Serra Ascendant instead. I am not even convinced that I shouldn't have Ascendant but I kind of hate those times where I do have her T1 and outside of those, I don't know that I value her much here. I would probably consider something like Stonecoil Serpent which probably has a better late draw and can fit any part of your curve better.

I started by looking at all of the humans, from there I looked at all creatures that cost three or less, then I looked into token production. I really didn't look much at the non human creatures 4+ mana, instants, sorceries, artifacts, enchantments.... lol ok I kind of looked into a few specific areas I foresaw a lot of my attention to be on then I winged the rest kind of quickly based on some past experience.

I also have a very hard time making changes to a list until I play it and get a feel for it. Its possible that I need more evasion to connect to opponents and or to keep my creatures alive, I just have a hard time really feeling out how much of an issue I am going to have on that front. If I eat wraths every turn I will need to add more things like Teferi's Protection / Boros Charm or to delve into reanimation tactics like Marshal's Anthem. Early drafts are tough for me because I want to tune and tweak them but really.... I have a hard time seeing where the weaknesses will be beyond just some paper napkin math sort of stuff until I really get my hands on it and run it through some games.

[Tryno]

Omen of the Sun doesn't work with the commander, unless you just want the bodies. I'm also not a huge fan of Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. You can't control the discard for him, so I don't know if he adds a lot.

With all these tokens, I would expect some Skullclamp action. Do some sweet attacks and then draw with their bodies.

What about efficient sorcery speed token makers?
Hordeling Outburst
Queen's Commission
Sworn Companions

[darrenhabib]

I like the Secure the Wastes. You'll get games where the board gets cleared, and Secure just allows you to wait before your turn, create like 6 tokens, and then cast Winota and look through 36 cards of your library for your choice of 6 Humans. That's how you get back into the game!

I'm playing Krenko, Mob Boss as a sort of over the top, must be dealt with way to generate tokens, but I see your Goblin Rabblemaster and Legion Warboss, and its probably technically better to be playing one of those.
In theory Krenko is a full two turns slower, as the Rabblemaster and Warboss make tokens with haste straight away.

Generous Gift can make a non-Human creature in a pinch, but that is probably not how you should use it

I was thinking about Crovax, Ascendant Hero but a few of the manlands have 1 toughness. Also my deck has artifact and red creatures that would die to it.