Thrasios and Tormod's Field of the Dead

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Post by pokken » 9 months ago

Thrasios and Tormod's Field of the Dead



This deck is the latest iteration of my Loam shell, adjusted significantly to take advantage of Tormod and Thrasios synergies. I haven't gotten to play this yet but in playtesting it's pretty fun and different. I've shoe-horned a few fun cards like Skola Grovedancer in that enjoy Thrasios' Training Grounds synergy, etc. The general pile of synergies is:

* Lands and other things entering or leaving the yard (Tormod, the Desecrator, Nether Traitor)
* Lands entering the battlefield (Field of the Dead, Bloodghast)
* Tokens making mana (Cryptolith Rite, Phyrexian Altar)
* Creatures dying (The Meathook Massacre)
* Training Grounds stuff (Skola Grovedancer, Shigeki, Jukai Visionary, The Scarab God, Destiny Spinner)
* Making absolute sure I can stuff Bojuka Bog attempts enough of the time that people are dissuaded Disallow, Voidslime, Summary Dismissal (adding Tale's End soon), as well as Entomb and Constant Mists and Cryptic Command because the deck absolutely runs on Field of the Dead



Thrasios & Tormod Zombies
Approximate Total Cost:

Our #1 win condition is making a bunch of zombies and then flying at people with them (Wonder) but we can also go infinite in a few ways if needed, and use Thrasios, Triton Hero to get there.

The two primary combo outlet is:
Phyrexian Altar + Nether Traitor + Tormod, the Desecrator -- > infinite mana → thrasios activations → drain outlet

We have a few ways to generate comical numbers of cards; a setup like:
Field of the Dead + Thrasios, Triton Hero + Ashnod's Altar + Training Grounds can let you activate until you stop hitting lands
Bloodghast + Ashnod's Altar + Field of the Dead (as above)
Earthcraft + Phyrexian Altar

Because Field of the Dead and makes untapped zombies, we can do a lot more with Earthcraft, but Nether Traitor + Tormod, the Desecrator still goes functionally infinite with Earthcraft since you can tap the Nether Traitor every time.

I am sure there are some other wacky lines I am missing and if I ever find another copy of Perilous Forays (or free mine up from Tatyova, Benthic Druid's clutches) I'll probably add that since it does kinda similar stuff.

In general we should be able to kill people with a buttload of zombies a reasonable amount of the time, but being able to get over the top with Bastion of Remembrance or The Meathook Massacre adds a bit of reach.

All in all I think this is a pretty unique take on the Field of the Dead archetype, but we'll see how well it does and how it's received :)
Last edited by pokken 1 month ago, edited 2 times in total.

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Post by duducrash » 9 months ago

If Field of the Dead is online you might go trough a bunch of your deck with Zimone and Dina saccing the token, right?

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Post by pokken » 9 months ago

duducrash wrote:
9 months ago
If Field of the Dead is online you might go trough a bunch of your deck with Zimone and Dina saccing the token, right?
Potentially! Not a bad idea. Thanks.

My guess is if you started with a loam/slogurk activation you could probably go pretty nuts yea.

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Post by pokken » 8 months ago

This deck has been great the last few times I ran it; it's really weird how it works. Last game was won by massively draining off of like 10 zombies with The Scarab God, digging into a Cryptic Command, drawing that and tapping the board, then bashing everyone to death with the zombie army.

I feel like I would like one more copy of Retreat to Hagra - might add Zulaport Cutthroat or something, or see if I can think of some other good landfall drainy effect if there is one. Maybe Scute Swarm is right for adding more kaboom potential for landfall.

As expected Ashnod's Altar + Thrasios, Triton Hero is pretty grotesque with Field of the Dead. So glad that worked out as I thought.

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 month ago

This deck is actually really sweet and I'm sad I didn't look at it when you originally posted it. I saw the link you posted in @Dunadain's thread and saw you had updated it in your deckbox but not here. Wouldn't mind seeing you post some insight into your updates.

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Post by pokken » 1 month ago

TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 month ago
This deck is actually really sweet and I'm sad I didn't look at it when you originally posted it. I saw the link you posted in @Dunadain's thread and saw you had updated it in your deckbox but not here. Wouldn't mind seeing you post some insight into your updates.
Hey man thanks for asking about it! I really love the deck and I always enjoy picking up new tech from your iterations on similar themes (slogurk is lit!)

This is the current iteration of this deck (and I updated the OP too since)
https://deckbox.org/sets/3392929

It's one of my favorites right now so it'll likely get a lot of attention.

I've been, in general, drifting toward making it more enchantment focused because in general I am super tired of the Ramunap Excavator / Azusa, Lost but Seeking fragile synergy.

Some recent cards I've added but not tried yet are Case of the Locked Hothouse and Undergrowth Recon and Insidious Roots

With the super high land count and the lack of explosive ramp, and all the things it's trying to do ( thrasios synergy, tormod synergy, finding lands, extra lands, lands from bin, drain, sac, mana from tokens) it's a little scattered sometimes, so I can't help but wonder if I can refine.

That said, the main angles (thrasios, finding lands, mana from tokens, extra land drops from resilient sources, lands from bin) all synergize strongly and are pretty good on their own.

I am kinda purposefully keeping it powered down but also more resilient by not running stuff like Seedborn Muse -- I need to pick up a few more things like another copy of Awakening and see if I can find any more untap effects that get tokens and lands but aren't overpowered or fragile.

I recently cut the Squandered Resources combo because it's just not what I'm trying to do; it is cool, it's just not a very good card in this build. I may bring that back because I am thinking about that Aftermath Analyst card, and I always love World Shaper.


--

My overall impressions of the deck are that there is something there. The zombies are really resilient and hard to deal with, and even if they kill Field of the Dead permanently I can make infinite or very large numbers of zombies with Tormod, the Desecrator or massive The Scarab God activations from Training Grounds to get the board presence needed to close the game. And of course the Nether Traitor combo is there.

Going to start playing it more and see if I can get more ideas to rein in the synergies a bit :D

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 month ago

pokken wrote:
1 month ago
Hey man thanks for asking about it! I really love the deck and I always enjoy picking up new tech from your iterations on similar themes (slogurk is lit!)
Aw shucks. My biggest complaint about Sloggy is the lack of real board wipes so even with all the fogs sometimes the deck can just be overrun. Access to black and more chump blockers might even the score.
I've been, in general, drifting toward making it more enchantment focused because in general I am super tired of the Ramunap Excavator / Azusa, Lost but Seeking fragile synergy.
I get the concerns about the frailty of creatures. It took me a decade to get over my old school creature prejudice. However, with the relative scarcity of Crucibles and the sheer power of Azusa, I still think they're worth running. Losing them to an incidental wipe does suck, but in real world situations unless you're seeing Wrath of God every other turn I think it's more than likely you'd get your mana's worth out of them.
With the super high land count and the lack of explosive ramp, and all the things it's trying to do ( thrasios synergy, tormod synergy, finding lands, extra lands, lands from bin, drain, sac, mana from tokens) it's a little scattered sometimes, so I can't help but wonder if I can refine.

That said, the main angles (thrasios, finding lands, mana from tokens, extra land drops from resilient sources, lands from bin) all synergize strongly and are pretty good on their own.
I love the deck but I do have some minor criticisms on this very front. It looks like it's trying to do just a bit too much. I don't like the combo/aristocrat lines, as I feel those are the least synergistic with the rest of the deck. I suppose they're more avenues to victory and with so many you can afford to be relentless, but I envision games where you draw a very meaningless Phyrexian Altar and either can't create meaningful tokens to sacrifice or anything to pump the mana into.

Speaking of lacking mana sinks, obviously Thrasios is king of the mana sink, but there will be times where you lose access to him for various reasons and I think you could work in some secondary draw engines. Sylvan Library is always good, and I think Dunadain is onto something with Mirri's Guile and Sensei's Divining Top being supreme card selection spells with fetching every turn, and Search for Azcanta seems both resilient and powerful, two things I believe you're looking for. Tatyova, Benthic Druid is also just disgusting in these decks.
I am kinda purposefully keeping it powered down but also more resilient by not running stuff like Seedborn Muse -- I need to pick up a few more things like another copy of Awakening and see if I can find any more untap effects that get tokens and lands but aren't overpowered or fragile.
I would also avoid Wilderness Reclamation, personally. I can't argue that it's not fantastic here, because it clearly is, but it's just so monopolizing of game time that I would feel guilty playing it. Same with Seedborn Muse. I played Seedborn in Tasigur, the Golden Fang when Fate Reforged was new and it was just gross, but also gross.

Also, while I'm here, Zuran Orb?

EDIT: No Cyclonic Rift? Are we being the change we wish to see in the world?

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Post by pokken » 1 month ago

Yeah for the most part if I am not playing a staple it's because I'm trying to keep the power level down. I think Wilderness Reclamation is okay cos it's only one untap but Seedborn is out of hand lol

I do need to think about the aristo stuff. My experience has been that ashnods and field tends to go off with thrasios. Phyrexian is less good unless I see nether traitor. So it's possible I could cut all of those for more land stuff.

That said I always have access to a zombie engine if I find either field or a loam effect (since Tormod plus loaming equals zombies).

The combo of Tormod nether traitor and altar going infinite with thrasios is pretty sick.

There's another synergy angle in there of forays plus traitor plus field which empties your library of fetchables pretty fast. Forays bloodghast also gross.

My general experience so far is that the Azusa stuff ends up in games ending too fast or me flaming out. So I wanna do something slower and more consistent than that for sure. She's just so fast.

--

I was ruminating on this a bit and I think I could afford to cut the drain stuff for more land or zombie synergy. Maybe scute swarm as the ezmode wincon with altars (you get to the point where if a thrasios activation hits a land you just keep chaining pretty easily).

So Meathook and bastion are potential chopping block cards, as well as retreat which is always a bubble card.

Frankly a part of me is tempted to just add more interactive spells for those spots. Gonna ponder on it.

It might be that Meathook stays since it's a sweeper and a wincon?

--

re: Library/Top/Guile package
Given I am going heavy on enchantments I might want to add some of the enchantment ones. I kinda have done a lot of library/guile/top stuff though and it might be a little monopolizing. Can't argue that it's great with Thrasios tho.


--

If you had thoughts on enchantment enablers for this general strategy that I'd missed I'd be very interested.

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 month ago

pokken wrote:
1 month ago
My general experience so far is that the Azusa stuff ends up in games ending too fast or me flaming out. So I wanna do something slower and more consistent than that for sure. She's just so fast.
More throughput!
Frankly a part of me is tempted to just add more interactive spells for those spots. Gonna ponder on it.

It might be that Meathook stays since it's a sweeper and a wincon?
This is what I'm doing, but I can't help but turn everything into a control deck. It's a problem.
If you had thoughts on enchantment enablers for this general strategy that I'd missed I'd be very interested.
Trade Routes comes to mind. Tortured Existence is a classic Tormod piece I'm sure you're aware of, though it may be difficult to enable here.

They need to make the green land in the cycle of Volrath's Stronghold, Academy Ruins, and Hall of Heliod's Generosity that recurs lands.

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Post by Dunadain » 1 month ago

TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 month ago
They need to make the green land in the cycle of Volrath's Stronghold, Academy Ruins, and Hall of Heliod's Generosity that recurs lands.
I've been waiting for this card for so long, it's so obvious just print it already WOTC!
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Post by Venedrex » 1 month ago

Dunadain wrote:
1 month ago
TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 month ago
They need to make the green land in the cycle of Volrath's Stronghold, Academy Ruins, and Hall of Heliod's Generosity that recurs lands.
I've been waiting for this card for so long, it's so obvious just print it already WOTC!
At first I was going to say the red one should put an instant or sorcery card on top, but that would probably be too broken with extra turns and such, so maybe it could recur battles?

Cool deck btw.
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Post by pokken » 1 month ago

I'll need to see if I can find my Trade Routes that seems likely to be very good and also defends my lands too.

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 month ago

I've always liked the card Titans' Nest but could never really make it work. Is this where it finally finds a home? Making a zambie and +1 mana is great on paper, but so far my list is a little light on generic pips, so I don't know. "Combos with Capsize" is fun for me, maybe.

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Post by duducrash » 1 month ago

I'll once more point to Zimone and Dina . You'll not quite go infinite, but if you have field online you'll probably see most of your deck. And if you find The Meathook Massacre you'll add a bunch of drain

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Post by Chromaticus » 1 month ago

Doesn't Zimone and Dina just trigger twice and be done? Good card, but it doesn't seem like an absurd engine unless you have something like Retreat to Coralhelm in play too.

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Post by duducrash » 1 month ago

Chromaticus wrote:
1 month ago
Doesn't Zimone and Dina just trigger twice and be done? Good card, but it doesn't seem like an absurd engine unless you have something like Retreat to Coralhelm in play too.
Edit: you are right and I absolutely didnt read the "once" this is way worse than what I was thinking

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Post by pokken » 1 month ago

TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 month ago
I've always liked the card Titans' Nest but could never really make it work. Is this where it finally finds a home? Making a zambie and +1 mana is great on paper, but so far my list is a little light on generic pips, so I don't know. "Combos with Capsize" is fun for me, maybe.
Yeah I mean I've had this card on my pile for a minute but not being able to pay for thrasios activations was the rub. If it could, shoe in for sure.
Chromaticus wrote:
1 month ago
Doesn't Zimone and Dina just trigger twice and be done? Good card, but it doesn't seem like an absurd engine unless you have something like Retreat to Coralhelm in play too.
I have a deck that does that lol (but with thawing glaciers and land untap guys:D)

--
A card I want to submit for discussion is Emergent Ultimatum. I am thinking as a way to get scapeshift and kozilek (or decree of pain plus scapeshift and reshape) might be worth considering.

And another card I'm considering is Cultivator Colossus. I know it's a dude but it's mostly there for the value and alternate wincon. Kinda meatheady but maybe worthwhile? I dunno.

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Post by TheGildedGoose » 1 month ago

pokken wrote:
1 month ago
A card I want to submit for discussion is Emergent Ultimatum. I am thinking as a way to get scapeshift and kozilek (or decree of pain plus scapeshift and reshape) might be worth considering.

And another card I'm considering is Cultivator Colossus. I know it's a dude but it's mostly there for the value and alternate wincon. Kinda meatheady but maybe worthwhile? I dunno.
Why not? They seem fun. I like Ultimatum more than Colossus, it seems like you have a lot more interesting lines with it.

Here's something I've been brewing.







Another Goose Lands SpecialTM. Too lazy to plot out the manabase right now, but you get the idea.

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Post by pokken » 1 month ago

TheGildedGoose wrote:
1 month ago
Another Goose Lands SpecialTM. Too lazy to plot out the manabase right now, but you get the idea.
I think that looks really close to how I'd lay the deck out if I were going for optimal land playing. I do like me some Wayward Swordtooth though. I don't know that I'd play quite so much interaction but it's meta dependent.

One piece I would not leave home without is Training Grounds. Thrasios activations for 2 are *really* good.

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Post by pokken » 4 weeks ago

A few cards I wound up slotting into this deck:

Awakening - This is not *great* but it's pretty strong. going to give it a go
Trade Routes - I think being able to chug along with land triggers late game is important, and having a way to reset lands is useful. I probably need to put Simic Growth Chamber back in the deck as another way to bounce various lands for reuse.
Aftermath Analyst - the synergy with Training Grounds and the ability to enable certain loops really makes this guy good. It makes me consider whether I should put Squandered Resources back in, but th card sadly just has very little utility outside of comboing, so I'm trying to not play too many cards like that. Still, I think analyst is really good in this deck and was a pretty easy slot in for Splendid Reclamation that lets me sandbag it for a while and also contributes to my early gameplan of filling the yard a little.

Going to hopefully get some reps in with the deck this evening at our group's magic night. I kinda choked on adding Emergent Ultimatum -- I think it's a reasonable finisher, but I think it might be OK to just hard cast Reshape the Earth or Scapeshift, they're solid enough wincons without too much help.

--

A thing I have been ruminating a little on is whether I really want to be playing Ancient Greenwarden. It does a lot of work in the deck but it's also kind of odd man out in terms of its role. It doesn't really combo, I don't have *that* many extra land drop effects*, and it doesn't synergize with Training Grounds or survive board wipes.

I am a little unsure what else I would want to play in that place. Maybe something as dumb as Parallel Lives? Or is there an effect that operates along that lines that does more of what I want?

Or even maybe just adding Scute Swarm as a way to go off is a better option.

if anyone has any nice ideas for either powerful enchantments or powerful training grounds creatures that might synergize with the deck I'd be interested in that. Hell, that could be the guy to cut for Emergent Ultimatum tbh.

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Post by pokken » 4 weeks ago

I had two games with this tonight. One was a bad loss in a three pod where I was just too slow and made some sequencing mistakes. But it's hard to beat locust god turn one sol ring into skullclamp if you don't draw removal :D didn't help that someone relicd my loam fairly early. Didn't have much of a choice but to expose it.

Second game I got there naturally with bloodghast forays into scapeshift and draining the table out with bastion. Deck was a little awkward having to pass turn with 40 zombies so I likely made a mistake somewhere and could have gotten there with some faster route.

All the new fetchables were really nice.

Interestingly I didn't really use thrasios in either game. Sometimes it's a training grounds game and sometimes not I guess.

Tormod put in some work in game 2 making bloodghast zombies.

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Post by pokken » 3 weeks ago

re: wincons

What I decided to do was put a Finale of Devastation in there over Bastion of Remembrance. Finale adds some finishing that also delivers us out of early-mid game stalls by fetching Shigeki, biomancer's familiar or aftermath guy at a reasonable cost.

Being able to give zombos haste is a really important thing. There are also yet to be discovered loops I think.

It's not exactly rocket surgery to play Finale in a Field of the Dead deck, but I think it's a better closing decision. I don't really need an infinite drain outlet because I can make infinitely sized dudes with Finale once I have infinite mana (and also make infinite zombies in a variety of ways). Once I can infinite mana draw my deck with Thrasios, Triton Hero it's pretty trivial to win.

The absolute worst case is we can loam-lock the table with loam if we have infinite mana from Nether Traitor combo, but we should be able to cryptic bounce or boseiju or otawara whatever stax piece is stopping us from winning.

--

I do think I am going to at some point add a Toxic Deluge, but still noodling on that. I kinda like how this deck doesn't make for super long games.

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Post by pokken » 3 weeks ago

Been thinking I might want to add a Fetid Pools and maybe a Lonely Sandbar to this deck; something I found the other day when I was playin was that the Life from the Loam engine with Tormod, the Desecrator makes a crapload of zombies -- basically for 1GG you can make 2 zombies, which is a pretty good rate. It gets better with multiple cyclers, since you can net cards.

So having that as an alternate game plan of:
1GGU - draw a card, make 2 zombies

Is pretty solid.

Maybe it's sufficient instead to hit a fetchland as well, or even Otawara, Soaring City or Boseiju, Who Endures.

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Post by pokken » 2 weeks ago

Deck got to do the thing today. It was beautiful.

I hit Meathook massacre and ashnods altar off a sword of forge hit, looked like I was dead without enough mana to finish it. But sylvan scrying for a vesuva into a second field of the dead let me use ashnods altar then Meathook to wipe the board. Then untapped slammed greenwarden, demonic tutored for scapeshift and closed it out noninfinite style with six zombies per land.

That was my first time sticking an ashnods altar and in a while and it was glorious.

Deck still kinda wants another sweeper but I'm thinking it might be opposition :D

Sword of Forge and Frontier put in some serious work as did the new charm that got first field of the dead

I am really liking sword as a bad copy of exploration.

Aftermath Analyst also did work

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Post by BlackbirdPlaysMTG » 6 days ago

Sweet decklist, nice spin on the lands archetype! Haven't seen the Thrasios + Tormod pairing before. Definitely going to keep an eye on how this list will evolve.
pokken wrote:
2 weeks ago
Sword of Forge and Frontier put in some serious work as did the new charm that got first field of the dead
Yeah, Archdruid's Charm is a great card in mono-green decks and other decks that can support it, all the modes have some utility :).

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