Verazol, the Split Current - The Kicking Forking Battery Noodle

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Stapler
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Post by Stapler » 3 years ago

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It Just Keeps Going and Going and ...
Verazol, the Split Current is a 2-mana commander that keeps up in power as the game goes on and as more mana in pumped into it. It's also a big pile of +1/+1 counters straight out of the command zone for certain cards to abuse. And it's a mana battery that can super-charge all the Kicker spells in the deck into punching - er, kicking - above their weight class. This deck tries to abuse all these aspects of Verazol to create a fun and potent Simic counter-themed deck.

Kickin' it Old School
Most of the Kicker cards are roleplayers in the deck - they're part of the ramp, card draw, and removal packages that keep the deck structually sound. But with Verazol they can become game-changers.

Everflowing Chalice, Skyclave Relic, Reclaim the Wastes, Grow From the Ashes, Primal Growth, Vastwood Surge, and Hunting Wilds ramp me up and ensure I'm getting all the mana I need to cast my spells, even moreso when Verazol is involved, and some of them can even contribute to creating a powerful board.

Thieving Skydiver, Mold Shambler, Blink of an Eye, Into the Roil, Rushing River, and Inscription of Abundance allow us to disrupt our opponents while becoming far more devastating and even highly advantageous for us with Verazol.

Jace, Mirror Mage, Sphinx of Lost Truths, Field Research, and Inscription of Insight are all solid card draw and card selection options that become quite a bit better when you get two of them.

Myriad Construct, Wolfbriar Elemental, Strength of the Tajuru, and Rite of Replication are the finishers for the deck, each capable of creating dominating boardstates by themselves, and especially when doubled with Verazol.

Twice as Nice
A major theme of this deck is doubling - if Verazol is doubling the effectiveness of my Kicker spells, why not double up on the amount of times I get to cast my Kicker spells?

Mystic Sanctuary, Regrowth, Bala Ged Recovery // Bala Ged Sanctuary, Eternal Witness, and Nissa, Vital Force let me recur my Kicker spells multiple times over, ensuring that I always have cards to abuse with Verazol.

Twinning Staff only really works with my commander - I have no other spell copy effects in my entire deck - but having an effective second copy of Verazol in play is extremely powerful, as tripling my mana's worth of each kicker spell I cast can get out of hand fast. I also play enough cheap instant and sorcerys that I can get some decent value off the 7-mana ability in the late game.

Mana Reflection doesn't double my kicker spells directly, but once I'm doubling my mana, plays like using copies of Blink of an Eye to bounce Eternal Witness to recur Kicker spells start becoming a lot more feasible. Multikicker cards like Strength of the Tajuru and Wolfbriar Elemental double in effectiveness as well.

But why stop at doubling up on spells? My commander comes in with a bunch of counters, so why not double those too?

Doubling Season, Kalonian Hydra, Deepglow Skate, and Vorel of the Hull Clade can all double or quadruple the counters on Verazol and turn him into a giant scary monster. Or they help ensure that even if I'm casting Verazol for relatively little mana, I'm still getting plenty of counters to supercharge my kicker spells. Branching Evolution goes here too once it becomes a more widely available card.

They don't double, but Pir, Imaginative Rascal, Flux Channeler and Karn's Bastion do help the +1/+1 counter spreading cause as well.

Of Dice and Men
... And they also help with a number of other cards in the deck that utilize counters!

Gyre Sage, Everflowing Chalice, Astral Cornucopia, and Crystalline Crawler benefit greatly from having their counters doubled again and again until I'm producing oodles of mana.

Toothy, Imaginary Friend, Fathom Mage, and Prime Speaker Zegana can draw ungodly amounts of cards when doublers are involved.

It wouldn't be a Doubling Season deck without Planeswalkers, and Garruk, Primal Hunter, Nissa, Vital Force and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon are all strong payoffs for putting a planeswalker straight to ultimate. Getting a squadron of Jace, Mirror Mages is pretty swell too.

Moving counters around with The Ozolith, Slippery Bogbonder and Forgotten Ancient work very nicely with the doublers as well.

Finally, straight up winning the game is a pretty strong payoff for doubling things, and Simic Ascendancy does so very directly. Strength of the Tajuru wins a bit less directly, but it doesn't take much work for this card to turn even a lowly Eternal Witness into a world-ending threat when you've got Doubling Season on your side.

Here's the deck, let me know what you think!

Verazol by Type and Cost
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Verazol by Function:
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Verazol by Function

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Possible Inclusions
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Incubation Druid - I don't think I currently have enough cheap and effective ways to give this card a counter (outside of Adapting) for it to be worth running, but I might in the future.
Wild Growth/Utopia Sprawl - Efficiently costed ramp definitely has a place in this deck, I'm just not sure where that place is at the moment. More testing is needed to determine how these cards can fit in.
Lightning Greaves - Protecting my creatures is nice, I'm just a little wary of running too many "do-nothing" cards that are only helpful when my engine is online. Also shroud can be problematic with cards like Strength of the Tajuru or The Ozolith. The haste also isn't that relevant aside from Kalonian Hydra and a couple of creatures with tap abilities.
Evolution Sage - Proliferate is only a minor subtheme in my deck, and I think Flux Channeler performs that role better. I could be wrong though, both on whether Channeler is the better choice of proliferater over Sage as well as the number of proliferate cards this deck can support.
Primal Vigor - A second copy of Doubling Season would be excellent. This card is not that. I'm very much worried that my opponents can take advantage of this more than I'm able to. I'm already weak to token swarm-type strategies and this card exposes that hole even further, and giving the Edgar Markov player double the Vampires and double the counters when he attacks seems like a losing play.
Nissa, Who Shakes the World - I'm only running 11 Forest cards, so on average this will be ramping me about 3-4 extra mana, but that's not bad for a 5-drop, and making creatures that come in with counters is synergistic with what my deck's doing. The ultimate isn't that scary, which is actually a plus since people are less likely to dogpile Doubling Season if my deck isn't filled to the brim with planewalkers that have Tamiyo, the Moon Sage-level ultimates, but at the same time ramping a whole bunch and protecting myself from Acidic Slimes and such definitely do help the cause. The card's failcase, though (barely drawn any Forests, don't have the board to protect it, having too many 5-drops) is pretty bad and pushes me towards not including it.
Arcane Denial/Counterspells in general - Definitely feel like this deck could use more stack interaction to help deal with removal pointed my way or cards that I otherwise don't have good answers to, like giant Comet Storms, but I'm uncertain what to cut without breaking apart the core identity of the deck.
Kicker cards that didn't make the initial cut:
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Coralhelm Chronicler - I do think that with the deck sitting at 20~ kicker cards I am running enough to make this card's ETB fairly consistent, but whiffing on this is a huge blow, and I'm definitely kicking spells on average less than once per turn, so this guy's mostly just an awkward Merfolk Looter that costs 1 more mana. Running more consistent card draw or filtering would just be better.
Roost of Drakes - My opinion of this card can be summed up as follows: If I kick Roost of Drakes and copy it with Verazol, the Split Current, and every turn or other turn or so I'm casting a kicked spell that generates me an Air Elemental worth of stats, then the card is quite good and is worth the cost. If I am unable to copy it with Verazol and only get 1 drake every turn or every other turn, than the card is slow and inefficient and isn't worth the cost. I think the latter situation is going to be happening enough times that I'd rather not play the card, but I'm willing to give it a try if my deck functions differently than how I expect it to.
Sea Gate Stormcaller - My deck currently has 8 spells that this card can copy (not including cards that are worthless to copy like Heroic Intervention). 2/8 of those, cards like Regrowth, are excellent and definitely worth copying one or more times. Another 2/8 of those, cards like Reclaim the Wastes, are incredibly disappointing to copy and aren't really worth the mana I'm spending. The other 4 are all instant-speed removal spells like Into the Roil where half the value is being able to interact and react to my opponents plays, and forcing me to cast them mainphase removes a significant amount of utility from those cards that I don't think is recouped from being able to cast 2 of them. The kicker on the card is also ludicrously expensive and I have to imagine I have better things to do with my mana than cast Wilt 3 times for 9 mana. I could definitely include some more cards to help make the card better, like Ponder and Nature's Lore and friends, Crop Rotation, maybe even Life's Legacy or Nostalgic Dreams, but the rest of the deck isn't built to abuse these cards and fitting in 5+ cards just to support one card that I currently can't even tutor for seems silly.
Gnarlid Colony - Copying this with my general makes 8/8 worth of trampling creatures across 2 bodies for 5 mana which isn't awful (technically 6/6 since I had to remove 2 counters to copy it, but ...) and they put counters on themselves which interacts with a lot of my cards, but that mode isn't really what interests me. Just being a 2/2 that gives my general trample, when my general can easily reach triple digits of stats with all the counter doubling my deck can do, gives the card enough utility alongside its kicker mode for me to seriously consider it. I ultimately decided that Evolution Charm had more utility and swapped it in over this card, with flying being arguably a less reliable form of evasion considering how large I can make Verazol, but Gnarlid Colony is definitely a card on my shortlist for inclusion. Though maybe I'm crazy and Key to the City is really what I'm looking for.
Cards that probably should be in the deck but are currently prohibitively expensive:
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Hydroid Krasis - With my general and all my kicker spells being huge mana-sinks, I don't have much room for more, but a giant flampling source of card draw and lifegain that is also playing with +1/+1 counters is definitely something I'd consider. I don't own one currently and I'm not sure I'd play it even if I did, but once the price goes down when it rotates (hopefully) I'll consider picking up a copy and giving it a testrun.
Branching Evolution - The last cut I made for the deck was swapping this card out for Twinning Staff once I realized how pricey this thing still is. Should 100% be in the deck, but I'd rather not drop 30$ on a card that's likely only going to end up in a few niche decks. Maybe one day Jumpstart will be widely available.
Sea Gate Restoration // Sea Gate, Reborn/Turntimber Symbiosis // Turntimber, Serpentine Wood - I can definitely afford to run a few more nonbasics, especially ones that can ETB untapped, and both of these cards offer something my deck is interested in, but I'd rather not drop 10$+ on additional copies of these when I have other decks that want these more.
Lithoform Engine - I can use all modes of this card extremely well, but I'm worried that it's too much of a win-more-ish mana sink to justify inclusion. If the card remains as expensive as it is, then it might not matter, but I'm very much on the fence about whether this does enough for the mana I'm spending.
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Last edited by Stapler 3 years ago, edited 13 times in total.
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Hawk
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Post by Hawk » 3 years ago

Sweet deck! I too am excited for the craziness that Verazol allows for.

I suspect that Roost of Drakes is good enough, even not kicked. A free 2/2 flyer is nothing to sneeze at. Finding cuts is tough though.

I was also surprised not to see Jace, Mirror Mage mentioned anywhere. He's not great alone, but is sorta nutso with Doubling Season and/or Verazol (heaven forbid you get both). He generally seems more fun and stronger than Field Research but I'd be tempted to run both.

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Stapler
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Post by Stapler » 3 years ago

Hawk wrote:
3 years ago
Sweet deck! I too am excited for the craziness that Verazol allows for.

I suspect that Roost of Drakes is good enough, even not kicked. A free 2/2 flyer is nothing to sneeze at. Finding cuts is tough though.

I was also surprised not to see Jace, Mirror Mage mentioned anywhere. He's not great alone, but is sorta nutso with Doubling Season and/or Verazol (heaven forbid you get both). He generally seems more fun and stronger than Field Research but I'd be tempted to run both.
Thanks! Any commander that lets me go exponential gets my blood pumping.

I'm really sad Roost didn't make the cut, but I have hope that once I get my hands on the cards and can find a chance to play that I'll be able to determine how often I'm getting to kick spells. My concern is basically that something like Shark Typhoon would put in more work on average despite being less on theme. If I'm able to consistently stick Verazol and have the mana to double it up I'm all for it.

I totally overlooked Jace on my first pass through; the fact that you only get one extra Jace and not two when you copy it with Verazol (since the Verazol copy will be legendary but the copy that THAT copy makes won't be) initially put me off, but I completely ignored that Jace on his own is an OK value engine and works nicely with all the counter manipulation. My curve is also mostly in the 2-4 range which makes Jace pretty decent at surviving blind-flips, and while I am awkwardly running Glasspool Mimic // Glasspool Shore, Bala Ged Recovery // Bala Ged Sanctuary, Reclaim the Wastes, and Evolution Charm as lands 35-38, even if he only draws 2-3 cards for 3 mana that's still alright as a failcase. I'll definitely have to find a slot for him to give him a spin, though I hope he doesn't end up being a player in Standard so his price stays reasonable. There's far too many mythics in this set that I want ...

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Already made a couple of small tweaks to the initial build. I wanted this deck to have a heavy focus on doubling, but there's another kind of doubling a totally forgot about: mana doubling, which Mana Reflection covers very well, working nicely with Everflowing Chalice, Gyre Sage and all of those pals. Don't think I'm running enough creatures to make Zendikar Resurgent really sing, and the extra mana it costs as well as the lack of support for mana dorks and rocks hurts. For Mana Reflection, Pir's Whim, as a pretty medium mana ramp option with some inconsistent artifact/enchantment hate can go.

After cutting my only nonbasic land tutor, cards like Homeward Path and Yavimaya Hollow, which were already a bit situational to begin with, are more easily cuttable, especially when I feel like I'm running a few too many colourless lands considering the amount of basics I'm running. Simic Growth Chamber, for having cute synergy with Bala Ged Recovery // Bala Ged Sanctuary and friends while also being a bit of card advantage, and Rejuvenating Springs which I forgot was coming out soon, take their place.

Finally I think Jace, Mirror Mage can slot in over Murasa Sproutling; getting back only kicker spells limits its utility early on in the game compared to other Regrowth effects, spending 5 mana and a Verazol, the Split Current battery charge to get two 3/3s and 2 kicker cards really isn't THAT impressive, and I think I have enough Regrowth effects to start with and can play with the numbers after I actually get to playtesting.

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Post by darrenhabib » 3 years ago

Nice write up and concepts for the deck.

Are the copied cards actually considered to have been kicked? Because kicker says as it's cast, so it feel like Jace, Mirror Mage copy wouldn't be considered kicked, so you'd wouldn't even get a third copy. I don't know need rules clarification for me.

I would personally cut back on the non kicker land ramp cards Cultivate and Kodama's Reach as you have so many at around this cost. You should look for lower costs so that you have more one and turn two plays so that you can play other spells (including land ramp) in a timely manner.
I'd play Wild Growth and Utopia Sprawl instead.

Seedborn Muse looks like a must with Vorel of the Hull Clade, Simic Ascendancy, Alchemist's Refuge.

With all the land ramp spells Evolution Sage is another great counter enabler.

I was thinking about fun creatures you can copy with Rite of Replication. If you do get to make 10 additional creatures (if rules work that way) then it might not matter too much what it is...however...
Deepglow Skate, Flux Channeler, Eternal Witness, Evolution Sage would be some of the more ridiculous upsides.
Fathom Mage and playing a single creature would net you 10 cards. Kalonian Hydra would be a scary army.
But I was thinking that Scute Swarm would be a super fun spin on your doubling theme. Create 10 copies of it (11 all up), and then each land is going to double the amount of them each time. You only need to cast one of Primal Growth/Hunting Wilds/Vastwood Surge kicked for 4 lands to then have 176 Scute Swarm in play!

Now with quite a few planeswalker counter enablers in Doubling Season, Deepglow Skate, Flux Channeler, Evolution Sage, Pir, Imaginative Rascal it is tempting to have some that really fit the theme of the deck.
Further to the ones you already have I like Nissa, Voice of Zendikar and Nissa, Who Shakes the World here to give you great advantages.
You could play Jace, Cunning Castaway as part of the double up theme, but it does go infinite with Doubling Season so not sure if that is acceptable for your play group?

Incubation Druid looks good for the deck.
Crystalline Crawler is another option for producing mana with counters and you can potential use it with Forgotten Ancient and The Ozolith.

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Post by Wallycaine » 3 years ago

:unamused:
darrenhabib wrote:
3 years ago
Are the copied cards actually considered to have been kicked? Because kicker says as it's cast, so it feel like Jace, Mirror Mage copy wouldn't be considered kicked, so you'd wouldn't even get a third copy. I don't know need rules clarification for me.
Whether or not a spell is kicked is a copiable characteristic.
It's similar to how if you copy fling, you don't have to sacrifice another creature, it just uses the stats from the originally sacrificed one.

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Post by Stapler » 3 years ago

darrenhabib wrote:
3 years ago
Nice write up and concepts for the deck.
Much appreciated! I've always been a fan of your deck builds as well.

I ended up writing a bunch of paragraphs explaining aspects of my deck's design in response to your suggestions, so I'll spoiler it to avoid making this post stretch down the page forever.
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Are the copied cards actually considered to have been kicked? Because kicker says as it's cast, so it feel like Jace, Mirror Mage copy wouldn't be considered kicked, so you'd wouldn't even get a third copy. I don't know need rules clarification for me.
Wallycaine corrected you on this, but one thing I'm actually unsure of is whether Doubling Season will double a copied Kicker permanent. Is a copied permanent spell that becomes a token as it ETBs considered "an effect" creating a token under my control? I think it is, but we'll find out once we get the release notes I suppose.
I would personally cut back on the non kicker land ramp cards Cultivate and Kodama's Reach as you have so many at around this cost. You should look for lower costs so that you have more one and turn two plays so that you can play other spells (including land ramp) in a timely manner.
I'd play Wild Growth and Utopia Sprawl instead.
I'm a degenerate who loves the feeling of safety and value I get from casting Cultivate and Kodama's Reach even though I know they're not the most efficient ramp cards, so I'm resistant towards cutting them, but Growth and Sprawl are definitely cards I'll consider going forward. It feels like this deck needs as much value and ramp density as it can get it's hands on to set up the magical-Christmas-land combinations it's aiming for, but as I further refine the deck these two are likely just the correct ramp selections for the deck.
Seedborn Muse is a card that generates a lot of hate and attention, and I just don't think this deck is abusing it enough to justify inclusion. You've pretty much named all the cards it really pops off with in the entire deck, and with most of my instant-speed cards being relatively cheap, as well as the total lack of tutors in the deck to help set up synergies with the Muse, I'm going to have plenty of draws where she has little impact on my game, or worse, negatively affects my gameplan thanks to garnering unwanted and possibly undeserved attention. If I had a general that abused her on its own, like Thrasios, Triton Hero, she'd be a shoe-in, but Verazol, the Split Current not really interacting with Seedborn Muse in any way was the final straw that caused me to cut Muse early on in deck design.
With all the land ramp spells Evolution Sage is another great counter enabler.
So, I'm not actually sure that all the proliferate cards in the deck, Pir, Imaginative Rascal included, are going to be all that strong. They have significant synergies with Gyre Sage, Fathom Mage, Astral Cornucopia, Everflowing Chalice, Empowered Autogenerator, Vastwood Surge, Llanowar Reborn, the 4 Planeswalkers, and Forgotten Ancient. All the other interactions they have with other cards, including my general, just aren't powerful enough to be worth mentioning, it's this collection of 10~ cards that I'm really playing this small proliferation package for. Because of that, I intentionally limited the proliferaters I'm playing to just a couple cards, and between Evolution Sage and Flux Channeler, I felt like Channeler was the most abusable with my setup, especially when I'm not running the full suite of fetches and only have 6 spells that put lands into play, compared to 40+ noncreature cards, many of which cantrip or accrue additional noncreatures to continue the chain. I could definitely be wrong on which of the cards are the most abusable - maybe the fact that Sage doesn't require mana is more significant than I'm giving it credit for - but I don't feel like this deck wants both.
But I was thinking that Scute Swarm would be a super fun spin on your doubling theme. Create 10 copies of it (11 all up), and then each land is going to double the amount of them each time. You only need to cast one of Primal Growth/Hunting Wilds/Vastwood Surge kicked for 4 lands to then have 176 Scute Swarm in play!
I'm definitely liking the idea of Scute Swarm, and I think I have the perfect cut for it: Spike Weaver is a card I put in specifically to deal with token swarm decks, as I'm playing a Simic deck with no Cyclonic Rift and only one wrath effect, but making a token swarm of my own is a decent answer to that strategy. Could certainly be a mistake, and in general the deck's inability to deal with a wide board is likely going to be an issue I'll have to address at some point, but for the exploratory phase of the deck I like playing off-the-beaten-path cards and seeing how they fare. In the long run this probably means I'll have to migrate some of my fetches from other decks over to here to fully support it, but ah well.
Further to the ones you already have I like Nissa, Voice of Zendikar and Nissa, Who Shakes the World here to give you great advantages.
You could play Jace, Cunning Castaway as part of the double up theme, but it does go infinite with Doubling Season so not sure if that is acceptable for your play group?
I'm not convinced by either Voice or Castaway. Voice not coming in with enough counters to ultimate after a single doubling effect is an immediate strike against it, and I'm not really a deck that's trying to go wide to take advantage of the -2. The cards in my deck that can do so, Myriad Construct, Wolfbriar Elemental, and now Scute Swarm, don't really need any additional support beyond cards that are already in the deck, like Doubling Season and Vastwood Surge, to make them effective, so adding in a card that's useful pretty much exclusively for that purpose seems unnecessary. Castaway going infinite shouldn't be much of a problem with my typical group, as you need to wait a whole turn to attack with the 2/2 army and everything gets cleanly answered by an Hour of Revelation, but Castaway as a standalone card is incredibly disappointing and the deck isn't interested in either of his abilities.

Nissa, Who Shakes the World I am interested in, she's in my "Possible Inclusions" list, but I'm currently unconvinced that she offers enough to the deck to be worth it. She'd probably take the place of a ramp spell, but I feel like my other ramp spells will be more consistent and less vulnerable than her.
Incubation Druid looks good for the deck.
Crystalline Crawler is another option for producing mana with counters and you can potential use it with Forgotten Ancient and The Ozolith.
Druid is also on the Possible Inclusions list, but if I'm not cheating the adapt cost I don't think the card is all that impressive, and I currently only have a couple ways of doing that; I'd rather play Wild Growth or Utopia Sprawl.

Crystalline Crawler, though, is a card I definitely didn't give a second thought to while building - I typically feel like I need to be running at least 3 colours for the card to be worth it, so I dismissed it too hastily - but I actually have a couple cards that tap for any colour like Coalition Relic, Skyclave Relic, and Astral Cornucopia, and you're totally right that any of my counter-moving shenanigan cards give the card a lot of potential. I'm going to swap it in over Empowered Autogenerator, which is a card that will typically be better than Crawler if cast early but Crawler easily outstrips it in utility and power at every other stage of the game.
I haven't even played the deck, let alone gotten my hands on the new cards, and I've already had 2 rounds of swaps. Yowza.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 3 years ago

Once upon a time, I wanted to build Phenax, God of Deception. I stumbled into the excellent primer thread on MTGS and realised that the deck was pretty much what I'd have wanted to accomplish, so there was nothing for me to innovate and I didn't pursue it. Your deck did the same with my Verazol musings. Congratulations :P

Given the fact you're likely to have some decent tall, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds is going to be very nice here for ramp. She's a card I tend to needlessly leave out for a number of deck iterations, I'm currently running her in every single Gx list I own.
 
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Post by Stapler » 3 years ago

Rumpy5897 wrote:
3 years ago
Once upon a time, I wanted to build Phenax, God of Deception. I stumbled into the excellent primer thread on MTGS and realised that the deck was pretty much what I'd have wanted to accomplish, so there was nothing for me to innovate and I didn't pursue it. Your deck did the same with my Verazol musings. Congratulations :P

Given the fact you're likely to have some decent tall, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds is going to be very nice here for ramp. She's a card I tend to needlessly leave out for a number of deck iterations, I'm currently running her in every single Gx list I own.
Haha, thanks. I've definitely been on that end of things too.

Selvala is interesting, though I have some hesitancy with it. For one, my deck is actually pretty bad at playing large creatures to trigger her draw, as outside of my Commander most of my creatures are either naturally medium-small sized or start out small but then get bigger, and giving my opponents cards is mostly a net negative as this deck can't play politics that well. Additionally, when this deck actually has a large beater, things should be going well for it, which makes the extra mana less necessary. That said, I can easily see her doing some ridiculous things and the drawback of giving my enemies cards likely isn't a big a deal as I think it is, so I'll give her a try.

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So I proxied the deck up and goldfished it a bunch and there's already a couple cards I can tell don't belong.

Myriad Landscape is too awkward with my general, since my plan most games is to cast Verazol turn 2, and Landscape being a tapland I'd prefer to play turn 1 conflicts heavily with that. I've got better things to do with my mana than cast a bad Rampant Growth even if it's on a land. Fewer taplands is great too.

Coalition Relic, compared to Cultivate and co, is vulnerable to artifact hate while also not really interacting with my counter synergy cards in a way that's significant. Selvala, Heart of the Wilds likely produces a lot more mana even if she's more vulnerable and risky.

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