Karador, Ghost Chieftain - Quest for Control

User avatar
WizardMN
Posts: 1965
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 124
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Twin Cities
Contact:

Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

Yep, exactly. If I could cast it off of Karador I think it would push it over the edge into "include" territory. But it really ends up being better than other removal because of the interaction with the Shaman and Reclamation but losing out on hitting other nonland permanents is a significant downside.

I think ramping people can be disastrous sometimes, I think only needing to hold up 1 mana is well worth that risk. Especially when it gets rid of something like Avacyn.

My main issues with Cavalier is that the dies trigger will rarely do much (I only have 10 cards it would ever be able to get) and its ETB still doesn't deal with some of the more obnoxious things I want it to (such as Torpor Orb, Humility, and Overwhelming Splendor). I did kind of forgot about that cycle of cards though since I more or less stopped playing for the time M20 and C19 came out.

With that being said, it is a "better" Ravenous Chupacabra. The 3 white can be tough as the deck is focused more on Green and Black but I could see giving it a try. I am not sure what I slot it over though. I still want most of my non-creature removal to deal with the aforementioned problem cards. I will put it in my "maybe" list for now to see if I can think of something I could cut for it.

Tags:

User avatar
pokken
Posts: 6283
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 2
Pronoun: he / him

Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Yeah the only thing that has me thinking about cavalier is that I have started to really see advantages in having fat bodies to discourage attacks. So cards like Chupes have been doing a lot less work in EDH for me lately since all the bodies are so pushed. Oh, and also winning games by bashing is nice. The problem is I think chupacabra is the only thing it'd really be good for replacing -- I think with how strong your manabase is it'd be achievable, especially

The other nice thing about it is unlike Chupe it does actual work with greater good. You're drawing 5 discarding 3 instead of drawing 2 / discarding 3.

I will say the 10 cards you have you can get with Cavalier are insanely strong cards almost invariably. Fetching a dead aura shards someone blew their removal on can be the game, same with survival of the fittest.

I do not see anything else you could cut but I do think it's worth trying cav in place of chupacabra. The upside is pretty gigantic. Would not be surprised to be wrong about that but man 2/2 bodies have just not been doing it for me lately.

User avatar
WizardMN
Posts: 1965
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 124
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Twin Cities
Contact:

Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

So, if I try to look at this objectively, here is where I see the pros and cons of each being:

Chups:
Pros
Comes down earlier
Can be tutored off of Recruiter if needed
Easier to cast
Allows for another creature off of P. Hulk

Cons
Small body
Can only destroy creatures

Cavalier
Pros
Bigger body
Can actually attack and still be a blocker
Can destroy any nonland permanent (including mine in case I really need a creature dead)
Works better off of Greater Good, Diamond Valley, Miren, Momentous Fall
Can more easily survive P. Deed (not by much though)
Can more easily survive Deluge
Can more easily survive combat
Has a dies trigger which, even if it gets me the worst thing in the deck, is still better than Chups getting me nothing

Cons
Comes down later (by a turn)
Harder to cast with the 3 white requirement
Provides opponent with a 3/3 body (though, with this being a 4/6, it doesn't mean a lot)
Can't be tutored off of Recruiter

Both allow me to get 6 cards off of Pod and both have their uses.

I am sure i missed something obvious as a comparison, but looking at it like this, the biggest issue is still the 3 white mana. But, the upsides seem significant enough as to be worth that small amount of risk. I think I will give this a try and see what I can do with it.

On a side note, Cavalier of Night could be worth it in this deck as well. I might have to think on that too.

User avatar
pokken
Posts: 6283
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 2
Pronoun: he / him

Post by pokken » 4 years ago

The recruiterability is really the biggest thing on that list for me. Not sure if that's the dealbreaker or not but I think there is a dealbreaker that's where it is. That said, you can always recruiter for necrotic sliver or (if you added one plaguecrafter) if you needed the effect to be recruiterable.

Night is really strong. I like that it acts as a crappy sac outlet as well if you need to start a little chain. The sequence of Cavalier → sac gray merchant → cast gray merchant with karador would end a lot of games.

Recasting Night from the yard and reanimating something is also likely to be savage. I have no idea how you would fit that in though, you'd almost have to trim from the higher power end stuff like Kozilek or Ulamog.

User avatar
WizardMN
Posts: 1965
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 124
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Twin Cities
Contact:

Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

Yeah, that is the biggest problem. Dawn is easy to just make a swap with Chupacabra but anything else I would want to slot out for Night is better than Night in most cases. Ironically. Chups might have been the cut for that one too.

User avatar
WizardMN
Posts: 1965
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 124
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Twin Cities
Contact:

Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

I finally got a game in with this deck again after a fairly long absence. And it went pretty well. I played against a Rhys the Redeemed deck and a Gaddock Teeg deck. It is worth noting that the store I went to has a ridiculous draw/mulligan procedure. They draw 10 and shuffle back 3. It is dumb so I chose not to participate but I figured I would mention it since it does change my opponent's decks (or, at least, their early plays).

I started off with 3 lands, none of which produced black. My thought was that I could use the Fauna Shaman in my hand to get to Sakura-Tribe Elder which is exactly what I did. This got me my black mana. I then cast Necromancy a little later to get Tribe Elder back and get another black mana.

Throughout a lot of the early game, I had no sac outlet. I had False Prophet in hand but no way to sac it. Luckily, I drew a Pernicious Deed which I basically hid behind for about 4-6 turns. I eventually cracked it and by then I had gotten Greater Good so I cast that and Prophet to give myself some defense. Prophet died and exiled everything so I recast it with Karador the next turn. Prophet died one more time and I dropped in Phyrexian Reclamation to pick up my dead creatures. I didn't have as many now since I had discarded an Eldrazi Titan to the Greater Good ability because I wanted to keep other cards. But it still played a big part.

Later, Elesh Norn came down for Rhys so I Pathed her. I used Sun Titan to get back Knight of the Reliquary which got my Diamond Valley. I had player Miren the same turn so I finally had my good sac outlets. Next turn, I dropped in Ulvenwald Hydra to get Bazaar. I was able to use Deed and clear Rhys's board (the Gaddock Teeg player was long gone by this point) and swing in with a 13/13 Hydra, a 14/14 Knight, and a 6/6 Sun Titan. This was enough to kill them so they scooped.

Overall, nothing too important to point out. The deck performed well, if just a little slow to begin with, and was able to hold its own against the army of tokens Rhys had on board. I think at one point, they had around 60 3/3 Saproling tokens (thanks to Tendershoot Dryad) but they couldn't make good use out of them with Deed and Prophet around.

Interestingly, I got Fauna Shaman and Phyrexian Reclamation and both times I thought it would be cool to get Murderous Rider off of them. In neither case would it have been the right play of course :)

I have ordered a Cavalier of Dawn and am going to try it out in place of Chupacabra. Hopefully I have it before I play again next week so I can see if it comes up.

User avatar
WizardMN
Posts: 1965
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 124
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Twin Cities
Contact:

Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

I played last night and ended up doing well again.

I played against Baird, Steward of Argive, Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain, and Sevinne, the Chronoclasm

Baird got off to a pretty fast start with their artifacts and Jhoira, while slow, was starting to stabilize with a few artifact token makers of their own. Sevinne started off with a Pramikon, Sky Rampart which helped me out a lot since they chose Right and they were to me left. So the were the only ones who could attack me and they didn't have much of a board.

I didn't do a lot to start with but Bazaar was able to filter through some of my cards for me. I eventually got a Recruiter of the Guard to get me Bane of Progress which reset everyone else's board.

During this time, Baird had a Gideon, Champion of Justice that was slowly ticking up. They got it to 21 at one point (from 14) so I just destroyed it with Necrotic Sliver. I then started looping Necromancy with Sun Titan getting Kokusho, the Evening Star a few times. This killed Jhoira and I got Baird down low enough to kill them.

I could have kept looping Kokusho but I chose to change things up and get something else. It didn't really matter as I was able to overrun the board Sevinne had to finish them off. I did end up sacrificing the Bane of Progress from earlier for 16 life (it had gotten 14 counters) and I sacrificed an Ulvenwald Hydra for 18 life later on as well. These both kept me in the game since Sevinne had gotten a Storm Herd to resolve for 24 tokens. I got through their tokens with a Toxic Deluge and overwhelmed then with Sun Titan, Erebos, God of the Dead and a few other creatures.

The game worked out pretty well, but I found the looping of Necromancy for Kokusho to be boring and monotonous. Which is why I got something different at some point (Underrealm Lich). The card is still really good for the deck but this play line highlights a "problem" with the card. For now I will chalk it up to everything lining up just right, but I will be watching to see if this card creates repetitive games too often. If so, I might look at cutting it.

I am still waiting for me Cavalier of Dawn but I hope to get it in time for some games next week.

User avatar
SocorroTortoise
Not A Turtle
Posts: 369
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: San Diego, CA

Post by SocorroTortoise » 4 years ago

That's the issue I've always had with Kokusho. The decks where I want it most aren't the decks that are using it as a reasonably costed evasive beater with a nice death trigger, they're the decks that can reasonably expect to trigger it several times over the course of the game. If I'm doing that, it's usually one of the best things I can do and it gets repetitive. Karador decks can usually grind like mad anyways, so I'm fine trading out a more efficient card for a more interesting one most of the time.

I've been bouncing the idea of Deafening Silence around for my list. Karador naturally encourages creature heavy game plans and Silence helps slow the table down to help make grindy value engines more effective. There's less recursion potential, but you're not running a self-mill theme so that's a less important. It feels more effective as a standalone card than similar effects (e.g. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben) have been to this point, which makes it tempting.
[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box

User avatar
WizardMN
Posts: 1965
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 124
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Twin Cities
Contact:

Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

That might be a good point. Kokusho is basically never used "fairly". I have had games where I have looped him 3 or 4 times with Chainer prior to adding in Necromancy. Because of the most recent game, and because Kokusho has been a staple of the deck for a long time, my first though was that Necromancy was the problem but maybe Kokusho is just more powerful than I want. As you said, casting/reanimating it is usually one of the better things to do which makes for less interesting games.

The main issue becomes what to use as a win condition. The game does need to end after all. I obviously have beaters I can use and Gray Merchant to end the game. I will keep an eye on it but since I can't really set this loop up and just need to draw into the cards, it might be fine. If I find this comes up more often than I want, I might have to cut one of the cards.

As for Deafening Silence, I think it depends on your meta but it almost seems the opposite of what we want. That is, a lot of what we want to do is let the opponents overextend which means we want them to cast most of their stuff so we can get a lot more advantage out of our sweepers. Now, if your meta is filled with fast infinite combos, this likely gives you enough time to get your own deck going. So, I wouldn't go as far as to say it is bad, but I think it needs the right meta to really work right.

User avatar
pokken
Posts: 6283
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 2
Pronoun: he / him

Post by pokken » 4 years ago

I have kokopuffs in a deck with a kinda similar gameplan (mono black Golos) and it's definitely pretty strong for fair metas. The life swing is often enough to end the game basically on its own since fairish decks aren't cranking out 15 life just willy nilly most of the time.

I feel like if they let you assemble necro+sun titan+koko+sac outlet they get what they get, honestly. That's a pretty wombo combo, and they can remove any piece to stop it.

User avatar
SocorroTortoise
Not A Turtle
Posts: 369
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: San Diego, CA

Post by SocorroTortoise » 4 years ago

The majority of your sweepers only hit creatures, so Deafening Silence only interferes with that plan when it comes to Bane of Progress and Pernicious Deed (partially). It feels more in the same vein as Collector Ouphe where it's impeding board development without shutting it down. You don't have a lot of interaction for any strategy that doesn't play to the board early (e.g. more controlling decks chaining draw spells) and you're well equipped to fight noncreature permanents on a 1-for-1 basis. You can also play around it with almost no effort, because you're already a primarily creature based deck - I'm guessing you don't have a ton of turns where you want to play out multiple noncreature spells already. It's not necessarily something you need in the deck but I don't think you're giving it enough credit if you're only looking at it as tool to fight fast combo.
[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box

User avatar
WizardMN
Posts: 1965
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 124
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Twin Cities
Contact:

Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

pokken wrote:
4 years ago
I feel like if they let you assemble necro+sun titan+koko+sac outlet they get what they get, honestly. That's a pretty wombo combo, and they can remove any piece to stop it.
This probably isn't the worst mind set to be in. This does require 4 pieces (all of which are very vulnerable) and it doesn't even win the game outright. That mindset doesn't change the issue of repetitiveness (which is the bigger issue for me) but it certainly hits upon whether the "combo" is too powerful. Which it probably isn't.
SocorroTortoise wrote:
4 years ago
The majority of your sweepers only hit creatures, so Deafening Silence only interferes with that plan when it comes to Bane of Progress and Pernicious Deed (partially).
That's fair. My sweepers are more for creatures. I was thinking of Bane of Progress being able to destroy a lot of artifacts/enchantments that people ran out, which they wouldn't be able to do through the Silence, though my most recent game (blowing up 14 permanents) probably influences that thought process.
It feels more in the same vein as Collector Ouphe where it's impeding board development without shutting it down. You don't have a lot of interaction for any strategy that doesn't play to the board early (e.g. more controlling decks chaining draw spells) and you're well equipped to fight noncreature permanents on a 1-for-1 basis. You can also play around it with almost no effort, because you're already a primarily creature based deck - I'm guessing you don't have a ton of turns where you want to play out multiple noncreature spells already.
The comparison to Collector Ouphe is probably apt as they functionally do something similar. My only argument against the comparison is that Ouphe is a creature so is much more likely to remain "live" throughout the game even if it is discarded, milled, destroyed, etc. Silence doesn't have that sort of staying power. Not to say it *needs* it but it is a big enough difference.

And you are right that it is unlikely for this deck to be hurt in any way by Silence since we aren't really doing much with non-creature spells.
It's not necessarily something you need in the deck but I don't think you're giving it enough credit if you're only looking at it as tool to fight fast combo.
That is probably true though I think I immediately think of this as a tool against fast combo mostly because that is where I think the highest benefit would be. I feel we have tools to deal with a lot of other strategies and fast combo is one of the hardest to interact with. I understand there are other uses as well so it is important not to focus on only one, but fast combo is important to deal with

User avatar
pokken
Posts: 6283
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 2
Pronoun: he / him

Post by pokken » 4 years ago

If you want a hate effect I think it should be a creature not an enchantment. thalia, guardian of thraben or eidolon of rhetoric would probably do the same kinda job.

Eidolon is pretty darned good in this deck since you can cast it at the end of your turn, and sac/recur it as needed.

User avatar
SocorroTortoise
Not A Turtle
Posts: 369
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him
Location: San Diego, CA

Post by SocorroTortoise » 4 years ago

I disagree on both of those. Without any other taxing effects or mana denial, Thalia is going to drop off rapidly and this deck is already fairly grindy, i.e. aiming for late game plays when everyone is likely to have more developed mana. Adding a 1 mana tax to noncreature spells is something that's primarily going to be effective in the early game other than hindering combo. It's admittedly better than Silence if your opponents are only casting a single noncreature spell a turn, but not by much. It also hinders your own play, where Silence is unlikely to do so - there are only 11 noncreature, non-instant speed spells in the list, so you're unlikely to be playing more than one in a turn.

Eidolon runs into the same issue of hindering your own play. Of the 61 nonlands in the list, 39 cost 3 or less and there are several ramp spells. You get to the point where you're able to double spell early on in the game and have enough card draw and recursion to support doing so regularly. Only 12 spells in the list are instants, so you're playing primarily on your own turn. You're going to run into Eidolon a lot. You can play around it with a sac/recur plan, but that means you're spending 3 mana a turn to upkeep it rather than a one time investment of 1 mana. In addition, you're burning your one time Karador cast on it, unless you have an alternate way to recur it - something that increase the resources to keep it around. It also goes against the deck's plan of forcing your opponents to overextend into sweepers. The same sweepers will also remove it, because one of the tradeoffs for being easier to recur is a much more fragile type line. It's an objectively more powerful effect, but harder for this particular deck to break symmetry on and the ways in which it's more powerful are not necessarily desirable when it comes to opponents.

I think there's a pretty good argument that you don't need the hate effect at all and it is certainly meta dependent. Silence is different enough from previous takes on this effect that there's nothing really analogous to it for this kind of deck with a high density of low-CMC creatures. I'd rather lean on the powerful removal options already in the deck and skip the hate effect entirely rather than run something that doesn't fit as well. I'm also entirely willing to admit that I may be projecting a little, because my own Karador list (not posted anywhere, but probably someday?) leans even harder into small creature synergies and can take advantage of Silence well.

For something completely different, how do you feel about Rankle, Master of Pranks? My focus would mostly be on options 1 and 3 of the trigger. An edict and a discard on every swing is an obviously powerful effect, there's enough card draw and recursion to power through it, haste plays well with the creature sweepers, and flying improves the odds that there's going to be someone open to get a trigger off of. I'm not feeling it particularly strongly here, just interested in thoughts on the card.
[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box

User avatar
darrenhabib
Posts: 1812
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

Hey, was having a good look through the deck and I think that Geier Reach Sanitarium is going to be a really great card to help against graveyard hate. You mentioned Vampiric Tutor getting a Titan in this situation and without the Bazaar you can use it in the same way. Just nice to have a Titan in hand and know you can use it this way.
I'd personally play it over Vesuva for that slot change.

On that note seems like Worldly Tutor is a very good card to have access to and you've already mentioned that your ability react to the stack is minimal.
So with Winding Canyons and then with Bazaar of Baghdad and hopefully Geier Reach Sanitarium you have a bit more scope to stop a potentially winning play.
For example you opponent goes to win with some Intruder Alarm combo.
You can use Worldly Tutor to get Harmonic Sliver, use Bazaar of Baghdad and cast out with the Winding Canyons.
This is a lot of mana, g + 3 + 1gw, but if you got the Winding Canyons in play then I'm sure often you'd be looking to play a more pass go style of game anyway?

I'm not sold on Constant Mists in the deck, you already have Spike Weaver. That would be the card I'd replace for Worldly Tutor.

User avatar
WizardMN
Posts: 1965
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 124
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Twin Cities
Contact:

Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

I am on board with the Sanitarium for the reasons you mentioned. My main issues are not tapping for colored mana and filtering my opponents' hands. And Vesuva can be basically any land I want it to be and being able to copy Bojuka Bog or Diamond Valley can be important so it is tough to look at it as being an easy cut. I can certainly keep the Sanitarium in mind though. I do like the line of play.

I already don't like tutors for the most part and I would rather not go further with them. For anyone else building the deck, this is likely a reasonable suggestion though your line of play is one that I wouldn't expect to happen all too often since I have far more answers for Intruder Alarm (and similar) that don't take 7 mana. If I can't answer Intruder Alarm with the removal I have, I don't think hoping to have Winding Canyons, Bazaar, and Worldly Tutor/Sliver is where I want to be.

Constant Mists has been instrumental in winning certain games. I remember a few where Mists was cast 4 times or more and was able to stall to ensure I won. It seems kind of weak, especially with Spike Weaver, but the redundancy, and the instant timing, are important against certain decks. I would be hard pressed to seriously consider cutting it.

User avatar
WizardMN
Posts: 1965
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 124
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Twin Cities
Contact:

Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

SocorroTortoise wrote:
4 years ago
For something completely different, how do you feel about Rankle, Master of Pranks? My focus would mostly be on options 1 and 3 of the trigger. An edict and a discard on every swing is an obviously powerful effect, there's enough card draw and recursion to power through it, haste plays well with the creature sweepers, and flying improves the odds that there's going to be someone open to get a trigger off of. I'm not feeling it particularly strongly here, just interested in thoughts on the card.
I am kind of with you on it not seeming very strong, but the (hopefully) repeatable nature of the effect can be very useful. It might be one where I would have to see it in action to see how well it plays. It is kind of "off" from the rest of the cards in that everything else is a specific answer or has specific utility to it. Whereas Rankle is more "lets do something and see what happens".

The randomness or, at least, the lack of control over exactly what the abilities do somewhat hurts it. Being able to force a player to sac their general or something like Elesh Norn is great, but as soon as they have a random 1/1 or a token the utility of Rankle falls off pretty fast. And discarding a card every turn I think is less useful than it might seem at first. Players will see it coming easily and it probably won't get rid of anything really good.

With that being said, if Rankle can hit often enough, he can fill the graveyard which does fuel our game plan. I am just not sure if it is enough.

User avatar
Rumpy5897
Tuner of Jank
Posts: 1854
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: he / him

Post by Rumpy5897 » 4 years ago

Hm, I can't seem to find a mention of Ramunap Excavator anywhere. Given your fetches and slow game plan, it seems like that could be a decent include. You could also consider Selfless Spirit. You mention you don't hugely care about wipes, but it still seems like you could benefit from having it around. Just some loose thoughts.
 
EDH Primers (click me!)
Deck is Kill Club
Show
Hide

User avatar
WizardMN
Posts: 1965
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 124
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Twin Cities
Contact:

Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

I had the Excavator in the deck until I removed it on 06/01. I cut it as part of this larger set of changes here when I was tracking the deck on MTGSalvation. It ended up being cut due to needing room for other cards as well as never really being relevant. With Bazaar and Fetches I had expected it to do more than it ever actually did. It seems good in theory but in practice I never found it to be relevant.

The Spirit on the other hand is one that I have thought about including in the past. It is cheap, is easy to activate, it can be gotten off of P. Hulk or flashed in with Winding Canyons as needed, and can help stabilize in the face of a wrath. I haven't thought about it in a while since I don't think I come across many situations where it would be relevant. That, coupled with the difficulty in finding a card to cut for it, has led me to leaving it out for now.

User avatar
darrenhabib
Posts: 1812
Joined: 4 years ago
Pronoun: Unlisted

Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

Any reason not playing Caustic Caterpillar? Seems like a shoe-in. I even prefer it over Qasali Pridemage as though they cost the same as far as mana investment if you were to use them, Caustic Caterpillar does cost one less and this means that you can cast it (let's say from graveyard) and use it as a political tool, without the need to sacrifice it, meaning investing less mana often. So overall I think this card is better as exalted isn't a factor and the 2/2 body isn't really relevant either (imo).
But anyway I'd run both in this deck.

User avatar
pokken
Posts: 6283
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 2
Pronoun: he / him

Post by pokken » 4 years ago

I always prefer pridemage if I have to choose because both the body and the exalted always wind up being more relevant, but most especially because you have to keep less mana up to maintain the threat.

User avatar
WizardMN
Posts: 1965
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 124
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Twin Cities
Contact:

Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

Pokken hits the nail on the head there. Yeah, the total mana investment is the same, being able to pay 2 mana now and 1 on a subsequent turn is preferable to paying 1 now and 2 when I actually need the effect. Either one allows for being a political tool and once it goes through a turn cycle, I only need 1 mana to be kept up which can make quite a difference with things like Necrotic Sliver needing a mana investment too. The bigger body comes into play sometimes and while Exalted doesn't matter often, it is still a reasonable "upgrade" over just a 1/1.

One of the main advantages to the Caterpillar is that, being 1 mana, I can more easily grab it off Protean Hulk. And I won't say their aren't times where it would be nice to grab a 5 drop and the Caterpillar. And if a second effect is needed, the Caterpillar is an easy choice.

There is certainly an argument to be made for its inclusion and I don't necessarily think one is definitively better than the other, but I think only needing the 1 mana to maintain the threat easily pushes me towards the Pridemage as the card of choice.

User avatar
pokken
Posts: 6283
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 2
Pronoun: he / him

Post by pokken » 4 years ago

I don't see why you would need it with the volume of spells that answer stuff. One of each effect (etb and sac) then bigger stuff (cavalier, that archon thing, etc.) And aura shards seems more than sufficient.

This is just my opinion of course but I am far less high on the cheap utility creatures with crappy bodies these days. I try to keep those effects to a minimum. I'd usually rather play an effect that can find them than play a bunch of redundant effects. More entomb and survival and recruiter and less Caterpillar plus reliquary monk plus rec sage plus pridemage.

And in general more archon of justice and cavalier of dawn.

I get that goes against the whole obsession everyone has with efficiency but if you're gonna try to win without combos you're gonna need some bodies and it's hard when your table is full of squires and bears.

User avatar
WizardMN
Posts: 1965
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 124
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Twin Cities
Contact:

Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

I think some of that depends on the deck. A deck led by Chainer or Meren doesn't care as much about efficiency since they re-use cards at a much lower cost. Karador and Muldrotha actually have to pay for their spells. Now, Karador only gets 1 per turn so efficiency isn't as important but something like Muldrotha where you get to cast up to 5 spells a turn from the grave, Caterpillar is easier to cast than Pridemage or Rec Sage. It sometimes comes down to the deck.

However, I agree with your point about the bigger bodies. One of the reasons I am trying out Cavalier of Dawn over Chupacabra, other than being able to hit more permanents, is that a 4/6 is miles ahead of a 2/2 when the idea of the deck is to outgrind the opponents. A 2/2 is effectively useless as anything but a chump blocker but a 4/6 (with Vigilance no less) can slowly start dwindling life totals while also controlling the board. I am simply hoping that the more restrictive mana cost is not something that hurts me. It shouldn't since I have a pretty good mana base, but not everyone has that luxury so Chups can be better with a more budget oriented mana base.

User avatar
WizardMN
Posts: 1965
Joined: 4 years ago
Answers: 124
Pronoun: he / him
Location: Twin Cities
Contact:

Post by WizardMN » 4 years ago

I updated the deck to swap out Ravenous Chupacabra for Cavalier of Dawn. I will give this a try for now and hopefully get a chance to try it out this week sometime.

Looking through the rest of the list, Weathered Wayfarer stands out to me as the weakest card in the deck. If I don't get it turn 1, and use its ability turn 2 before dropping a land, it is unlikely I will ever use it. The deck has enough ramp that by turn 3 or 4 I want to have the most lands among everyone anyway. Since adding it, I think I have only gotten to activate it once or twice. And I am not sure how good those activations actually were.

Burnished Hart is another I have considered simply due to how slow it is. It is better for re-use so I haven't gotten to the point of actually cutting it and I don't want to go down any ramp. At best, I could see swapping it for something a little faster.

I still haven't gotten a lot of mileage out of Evolutionary Leap either so that is another I am keeping an eye on. And, based on darrenhabib's comment above, I will monitor Constant Mists to see if the effect is truly needed anymore. While I have won a number of games off of it, I don't think I have cast it in months. It might not be as relevant any more with the addition of all the other removal options. I will have to see.

I don't have any immediate plans to replace any of these cards (except maybe Wayfarer) but a cursory glance shows these to the ones I feel might be underperforming.

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic

Return to “Decklists”