Varina, Lich Queen - Esper Zombie Midrange

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toctheyounger
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

katsuma wrote:
4 years ago
Looking forward to hearing how it goes -- probably not playing until Wednesday here but hopefully will draw mirrorweave and see if it's worth a spot.

Also, I'm adding in Lim-Dul's Vault for Mausoleum Secrets and then Treasure Cruise for Mystic Remora -- the delve is just so easy in this deck and the remora sometimes doesn't get enough value quickly enough for me. Also with the Vault, it's like a tutor but we're usually drawing 5+ cards during the attack phase so it can be even better.
These are interesting adds. I have to be honest, I don't think a lot of Mausoleum Secrets in most scenarios anyway, but I can see why it's in here; if it works in any deck it's this one. I've tried LDV in similar decks to this one, and honestly it's the farting about with top deck that makes it something I don't like playing, but I can still see why you play it. I think it'll be good here.

Mystic Remora is a strange one. While it costs only , dropping it first turn pretty much nets you diddly squat. You sort of have to drop it on a relatively active board, because it has a finite life. Ultimately, in this deck it is good but not as good as Rhystic Study would be. That card desperately needs a reprint or a price drop. I personally prefer Remora over delve options, but Treasure Cruise is good, so I see why you'd go for it. Personally, I almost think you'd be better again to go one further and pick up Dig Through Time, because it's instant and it digs really deep and gives your the best of your top seven.

Delver and Lich are very different cards. Lich really thrives in an environment where you have a lot of mana to throw at it. It's great for picking from opponents' graveyards for control - things like Reclamation Sage and what not make it pretty versatile, but she is THIRSTY. Delver is a set and forget, but doesn't go nearly as deep as Lich for variety of uses. It's still great, and if you don't need the control it'll do just fine for keeping your board full enough. I guess it depends what you intend to do with them as to which will work better for you, but if your mana production is anything like mine I suspect Delver will probably sit a little better here.

Got some deck changes for myself here:

I've talked already about most of these. For additions, the shocks and further tango are easy adds. Bone Miser is a beast, Dance of the Manse I expect will be a sleeper hit - it's a reset post rock or enchantment removal, evens out my graveyard exile usage, makes some of my control and my mana production more stable, and scales to my board well - the supposed upside of animating the targets we're never going to hit - the ceiling for artifacts and enchantments is 5 CMC, so it's a moot point and I'm happy with that. Mirrorweave I think has every possibility of being a crazy card, although it will vary widely in its application. It's a nice control piece as well as being a decent finisher depending on how it's used, so I think it will be a versatile add (I think it'll be hilarious to turn the entire board into Gravecrawlers or Carrion Feeders for a turn and swing in). Reconnaissance is pretty excellent here, to be honest. It doubles as damage control for both attacking and blocking and it's likely to be very strong.

Removals I did labour over a little. The shadow lands are easy drops, as is Mystic Sanctuary. It was a nice thought that it might trigger, but the odds were always very slim, so I'm fine with giving that up as a dead duck. Corpse Harvester seems reasonable to drop for Miser - slow ramp and pseudo tutor is fine, but it really doesn't rival what Miser has to offer, so it's an easy enough switch. Ashnod's Altar is pretty much entirely superfluous to requirements here. I don't need the colorless mana, and even if it were Phyrexian Altar, I wouldn't see the need aside from combo (which, as I've established already, I'm not all that fussed over). Foulmire Knight I didn't really get a chance to playtest, to be honest. It's a reasonable addition, without being stupendously overpowered, but it is a little tough to recycle, so I thought it was easy enough to switch in or out if it doesn't work, or conversely at a later date if Manse doesn't. Graf Harvest I was loathe to remove, but it is there for redundancy. It doesn't do anything I don't already have otherwise - evasion we have on Zombie Master, Eldrazi Monument, Lord of the Accursed, and the exile clause I....don't use. I don't like exiling creatures from my yard unless I have no choice, and Varina can do it just fine.
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Finally got to do at least a little playtesting for some of the new cards.

True Love's Kiss has been good. When it''s dropped I've been mindful of whether I'd prefer Return to Dust and mostly the answer has been no. The more cards I see the better, and this helps a smidge. It came up in a game today where I was definitely the dominant figure - 3 lords on the table and some aristocrats, and it was a simple 'swing till they die' win. At any rate, when I played Kiss there was one obvious target, and a cantrip was totally preferable to a second target.

Mirrorweave I've seen come up once or twice. It helped minimise damage against a Greven, Predator Captain deck to buy me some time. Pretty sure I either lost or ran out of time to finish the game, but it helped. I think there's a good chance it could be quite helpful moving forward, although defensively there's a couple of things to keep in mind:
  • It doesn't mitigate equipment buffs.
  • You can either play it on declaration of attack phase to deter attack triggers (Annihilator, Narset, Enlightened Master etc), OR you can cast it in response to declared attack, take whatever attack trigger hits and trade in combat to remove the threat. You can't do both - there's no way someone swings with a 0/1 plant with no attack trigger, so it's almost certainly an either/or.
Nonetheless, to me it's worth it for the explosive attack plays it can produce, and for the opportunity to use in either of these contexts defensively. I'm happy with it at present.
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Post by RedCheese » 4 years ago

Had Bonemiser on field but it got exield before i pulled the sanitty.

But still managed to pull the Tombstone Stairwell + Kindred Discovery + Zombie Infestation nonsense. This is so insane so so incredibly dangerous aswell lo. Still managed to win but the danger of decking out is still there XD

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Oh man, it's such a suicidal combo. You gotta be real confident you can win to have those both in play at the same time. I guess you could run a Titan or Nexus to shuffle things back in but I don't see the point. I just try to avoid them both being in play at the same time unless I'm sure I can end the game, and FAST. Last time I had them both out I lasted like 2 turns before I pulled my last card.
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Post by RedCheese » 4 years ago

Yeah, thankefully i won in my next turn afetr having that combination. Second time this happened, first time i used Anguish Unmaking to remove Kindred Discovery or it was gg (i needed Tombston to attack). Shame i didn't have any of my pingers during this, but still winning with Rooftop Storm basically ended.

I wanetd to mentione it because this combination is hilarious suicidal.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Yeah I kinda like it too. It gives the table a whole lot of anticipation. It's that feeling of like 'can he do this or did he just shoot himself in the face?' It's the sort of game state that makes EDH such a beautiful thing.
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Post by yeti1069 » 4 years ago

Interesting game tonight that ended with another player casting Weird Harvest for x=2.
I'm still running a slightly different build from what you have here, including some infinite combos.

Already had Phyrexian Altar and Swan Song in hand, so I tutored up Gravecrawler and Vengeful Dead (since the other "aristocrat" zombies were already in my yard) with 8 lands, Varina, and another zombie in play.

Cast Altar.
Cast Gravecrawler. Opponent tried to destroy the Altar.
Cast Swan Song.
Sac 'Crawler to make a mana to cast Vengeful Dead.
Sac random zombie to make a mana to cast 'Crawler.
Win.

Both other players tutored up infinite combo wincons, so if I hadn't won on the spot, the game would have been over on the next player's turn. I'm basically running 2 combo-enabling cards in Rooftop Storm and P.Altar, and both have been stellar even without combo pieces (mass reanimate, sac everyone to Altar for mana, cast out hand, or mass reanimate again, or cast an X spell, or...//Rooftop is just nuts, especially with some of the heavier card draw we can get). Personally, I don't play to combo, and generally don't tutor for combo pieces unless the game looks like it's in jeopardy or I'm playing against cEDH-level decks.

What I like is that the deck can play out as a zombie swarm tribal deck, or win through mass reanimation shenanigans, or win via aristocrats/Grey Merchant, or go off with an infinite combo I stumble into. For many of the games I've played with the deck, it typically removes players with at least two of these strategies in any particular game (attack one player out, kill someone else with aristocrats stuff, finish off the last with a combo or Gary). Sure, sometimes I just run into a combo early on, but if I don't want to win that way, I don't feel compelled, and with Varina's filtering nothing is truly a dead draw, since it can be turned into another card easily.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

yeti1069 wrote:
4 years ago
Interesting game tonight that ended with another player casting Weird Harvest for x=2.
I'm still running a slightly different build from what you have here, including some infinite combos.

Already had Phyrexian Altar and Swan Song in hand, so I tutored up Gravecrawler and Vengeful Dead (since the other "aristocrat" zombies were already in my yard) with 8 lands, Varina, and another zombie in play.

Cast Altar.
Cast Gravecrawler. Opponent tried to destroy the Altar.
Cast Swan Song.
Sac 'Crawler to make a mana to cast Vengeful Dead.
Sac random zombie to make a mana to cast 'Crawler.
Win.

Both other players tutored up infinite combo wincons, so if I hadn't won on the spot, the game would have been over on the next player's turn. I'm basically running 2 combo-enabling cards in Rooftop Storm and P.Altar, and both have been stellar even without combo pieces (mass reanimate, sac everyone to Altar for mana, cast out hand, or mass reanimate again, or cast an X spell, or...//Rooftop is just nuts, especially with some of the heavier card draw we can get). Personally, I don't play to combo, and generally don't tutor for combo pieces unless the game looks like it's in jeopardy or I'm playing against cEDH-level decks.

What I like is that the deck can play out as a zombie swarm tribal deck, or win through mass reanimation shenanigans, or win via aristocrats/Grey Merchant, or go off with an infinite combo I stumble into. For many of the games I've played with the deck, it typically removes players with at least two of these strategies in any particular game (attack one player out, kill someone else with aristocrats stuff, finish off the last with a combo or Gary). Sure, sometimes I just run into a combo early on, but if I don't want to win that way, I don't feel compelled, and with Varina's filtering nothing is truly a dead draw, since it can be turned into another card easily.
Sigh, busy weekend.

This sounds like a well earned win. I definitely get where you're coming from regarding combo. I don't like 'oops I win's, so I don't go for combos even if I have the pieces available. But that being said, there's enough strong synergy in the deck that it's not a huge leap. There's times the mass reanimation spells feel like a combo win anyway (mostly with Gary, but other times too). I guess the difference is there's enough set up you can safely say 'well, you let this happen, where's your grave hate or counters?'

Ultimately, Rooftop for me is a card I just don't want to run. It's fairly costly and outside of combo it's an easy KOS target that potentially doesn't get you all that far ahead, IME. I could be wrong, but my experience is that either people expect to see it and hold up removal or by the time I'm ready to cast it I have a solid board presence and just don't need it.

Phyrexian Altar is a little different. It's a very strong card, and I could totally see it doing really strong work outside of combo. I don't have a spare - one copy, and Yawgmoth has it (the flavour is too good, and the deck is geared more towards high power play so it seems like the right home for it).

Your last point is precisely what I love about this commander. You can more or less use every card every time you draw it. There is no dead draw, and it's remarkably easy to dig for the pieces you want, so you can tailor your strategy to what you feel like playing for each game. It really is a lot of fun. Even going pure vanilla combat win you can change tack easily, and each of the likely be tags to victory lie close enough to each other that there's overlap, making it easy to be resilient.
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Man, it has been a LONG time since I got the opportunity to play for any length of time. Don't really have a lot of feedback at the moment other than an upcoming acquisition and a possible playtest.

I did have a game today against Aminatou, the Fateshifter, Atla Palani, Nest Tender and Omnath, Locus of Rage. It was honestly a great game purely for the amount of removal and control elements on the table. I lost. But it was fun. Ultimately it's very hard to get rid of an Ashnod's Altar without the player who has it sacrificing all of their creatures to fling 3 damage a pop at your face. Still, the highlight of the day was an early Arcane Denial against Aminatou's Oath of Teferi. Half a dozen turns later he said 'if that hadn't been countered I would've won on the spot'. And that's how you pick your targets for permission, team.

So in the next few weeks sometime, I'm gonna be slotting in Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. It came into my LGS and I couldn't say no. There's a chance it gets reprinted in January, but I'm not holding my breath. Likely chop will be Arcane Sanctum, possibly Volrath's Stronghold (I almost never want my creatures on top of my library).

The other card I've been tossing up adding of late is Fleshwrither. It's a toolbox card that we can use for specific pieces, the only issue I have is whether it actually gets anything worth tutoring. Currently it can grab Vengeful Dead, Agent of Erebos and Graveborn Muse. If I wanted it to, it could get Balthor the Defiled, Fatesticher, Korlash, Heir to Blackblade, Skinrender, Undead Alchemist, Undead Warchief and Vindictive Lich. I don't necessarily think any of these are perfect fits, but I've been tossing it up as a candidate nonetheless. I think for the moment it's on the backburner until something absolutely clutch comes into the list at 4.
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Post by yeti1069 » 4 years ago

Fleshwrither is too slow, I think.

I've tried using it in a Marchesa, the Black Rose deck where I had a bunch of 4 mana targets, and could recur it each turn without much trouble, but I always just found it to be too slow having to spend 7 mana (even if broken up over two turns) for the effect.

With the way this deck churns through its cards, and the pace at which it's pushing ahead, I'm not sure it's worth playing. For 6 mana, you could play Demonic Tutor and whatever 4 mana card you would have gotten with Fleshwrither in the first place, while also having the option of getting a non-creature, or a card of a different CMC.

If anything, I would consider Dimir House Guard first, since it curves better (3 mana, then 4, instead of 4 mana and then 3), can hit any 4 mana card, and is a useful creature on its own as a sac outlet. Still, I'm not sure I would run that either.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Yeah, I did wonder if the cost would add up too much. I'd been thinking of it in my Glissa build for some key pieces (Rankle, Master of Pranks, Solemn Simulacrum, Treasure Keeper) but not sure if it really makes the cut there either. Transmute is just much less costly than transfigure.

That being said, I think in a dedicated mill combo shell, it'd be a great toolbox fetch for Undead Alchemist.
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Post by boer0829 » 4 years ago

Played a game with my Varina, Lich Queen deck against Volrath, the Shapestealer and Ghave, Guru of Spores.

Drew a hand with 2 rocks(Worn Powerstone and Talisman of Hierarchy, Rhystic Study, Rhystic Study and 3 land. Decided to land the study as quick as possible. Opponents had a fresh memory of the game before this one where a Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe absolutely propelled a Golos deck. So the Study was removed quickly, only drew me one card. I drew into some more removal, skullclamp, some zombies (Oketra, zombie token maker and Balthor) and a Library of Leng.

The Library was a big disappointment. The game really started to take of and I had that thing in play. I wasn't able to cycle through my library, seeking for answers and dumping zombies in my grave for mass reanimating and bleeding effects because I had to put all that stuff on my library.
I also ran really fast out of gas, only having 2 cards in my hand, so not really able to keep all the cool stuff when I was cycling.

On some points the deck really did well. The deck was able to make some tokens and having a decent board presence. That was nice.

The Volrath player was annoying with an Contagion Clasp. The Ghave player went under the radar, landing some creatures (Bloodspore Thrinax devouring for 2) suddenly a Doubling Season, landing a Ghave and finishing us with an Overwhelming Stampede.

Have to admit that most of the time me or the guy playing with Volrath is the public enemy, this time it was me so I was getting all the hate though I was not playing one of my top decks. (Saved that for the game after this one, Mono U artifact)

Thinking about to swap the library for a draw X spell.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

boer0829 wrote:
4 years ago
Played a game with my Varina, Lich Queen deck against Volrath, the Shapestealer and Ghave, Guru of Spores.

Drew a hand with 2 rocks(Worn Powerstone and Talisman of Hierarchy, Rhystic Study, Rhystic Study and 3 land. Decided to land the study as quick as possible. Opponents had a fresh memory of the game before this one where a Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe absolutely propelled a Golos deck. So the Study was removed quickly, only drew me one card. I drew into some more removal, skullclamp, some zombies (Oketra, zombie token maker and Balthor) and a Library of Leng.

The Library was a big disappointment. The game really started to take of and I had that thing in play. I wasn't able to cycle through my library, seeking for answers and dumping zombies in my grave for mass reanimating and bleeding effects because I had to put all that stuff on my library.
I also ran really fast out of gas, only having 2 cards in my hand, so not really able to keep all the cool stuff when I was cycling.

On some points the deck really did well. The deck was able to make some tokens and having a decent board presence. That was nice.

The Volrath player was annoying with an Contagion Clasp. The Ghave player went under the radar, landing some creatures (Bloodspore Thrinax devouring for 2) suddenly a Doubling Season, landing a Ghave and finishing us with an Overwhelming Stampede.

Have to admit that most of the time me or the guy playing with Volrath is the public enemy, this time it was me so I was getting all the hate though I was not playing one of my top decks. (Saved that for the game after this one, Mono U artifact)

Thinking about to swap the library for a draw X spell.
Yep, as much as Library of Leng seems cool, it's something you really don't NEED. I found it actually slowed things down more than anything. Put it this way; if you're willing to discard a card, there's a fairly good chance you don't want it to end up on top of your library instead. And if that's the case why run the Library in the first place? To my mind it's far more efficient to just be prudent with your looting and make sure you're being clinical with what hits your yard and when. If library placed the card in your hand instead of topdeck it'd be a completely different story. Ultimately though, because it doesn't change the net number of cards in hand it doesn't get you any further ahead, so you're almost always better off with some form of draw.

In terms of draw, how have you found Skullclamp? Given that most of our critters are 2/2's I found it pretty lackluster, strange to say (it seems blasphemous to say it about Clamp, but it's the truth here). Things that have done really well for me for draw in the current list: Kindred Discovery, Graveborn Muse, Ancient Excavation, Midnight Reaper, Undead Augur, Bone Miser. The beauty of a lot of these choices is that they're not dedicated draw; they're just giving us extra draw for things that we're already doing, or what our opponents are already trying to do in the cases of Midnight Reaper and Undead Augur. So you're getting yourself ahead anyway, and still filling your hand on top of that.

I guess from what's left out of my list there's TONS you could add so it's a little hard to pinpoint something that'll fit like a glove, but you do have a few really good options. I've looked at Pull from Tomorrow before. It's instant speed and scales, plus it puts something in the yard to reanimate. Well of Lost Dreams could be awesome if you find yourself with spare mana at the start of combat phase. God Eternal Bontu or Reprocess seem good, too. Otherwise there's always your standard black staples like Night's Whisper and Phyrexian Arena, and you could look at wheeling too with stuff like Windfall and Whispering Madness (both great with Archfiend of Ifnir and Bone Miser). Ultimately though, I think because we're seeing so much of the deck anyway it's less about having optimal draw options and more about having redundancy in your options for draw; if you miss one, you have plenty more, and you don't have to work too hard to find them or to make them work, so whatever works for you you could add with pretty minimal risk.
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Post by yeti1069 » 4 years ago

Library of Leng is a may. You chuck the stuff you don't need, or specifically want in the yard, then put the rest on top. When I was running it, I would keep 1 or 2 answers on top while chucking everything else to refill my hand, but not lose a counterspell or removal. Ended up removing the card since it didn't actually come up very often, and I'm never going to tutor for it.

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Post by boer0829 » 4 years ago

Hmm, didn't see it was a ''may''. I have an old version with a lot of text and it was the first time I played the card. Anyway, will remove the card for some draw effect.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Yeah, it is. Personally, I just found it didn't really add much when online. Also, having a no max hand size modifier meant that I couldn't discard at end of turn if I overdrew (when you have no other way online to fill your yard it's not nothing).

Ultimately I think it's a reasonable add for some lists, especially if you have really clutch instants/sorceries you can't afford to hit the yard, but I think all of the clutch spells I run here I have redundancy in anyway, so it's just surplus to requirements in my deck.

To be fair though, I think in something like a miracle build it could be a really stellar addition.
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Post by katsuma » 4 years ago

Not really seeing any new additions to the Varina deck being spoiled in the new Theros set... anything jump out yet?

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Post by Artaud » 4 years ago

Escape mechanics have some potential with all that looting but I dunno which card/s could fit the gameplan.

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Post by RedCheese » 4 years ago

For a set Beyond Death, we barelly got any worthwhile zombies. Not a single one to consider in varinna sadly :/

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Theros - Beyond Death Review




A new year, a new set and we're back to Ancient Greece. Sorry for the relative radio silence guys, things have been a little busy on my end with work and family (will be adding a new member to the family in round about 4 months, which is exciting and terrifying at the same time).

My wife and I played a TON of the original Theros block and enjoyed it greatly, so naturally we're fairly excited for more; my wife studied Greek history so she's hugely into it and the flavour is so thick you could spread it on toast like peanut butter. That being said, with spoilers out over the last week or so, this set looks fairly heavily skewed towards limited play. There's some great cards, but nothing I can see that makes a huge splash in this particular deck.

Artifacts/Colorless/Lands

  • Nyx Lotus - Entering tapped hurts this a lot. Comparable to Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx but slower and (initially) more costly. I think it could be added, but it doesn't ring my bell as much as I'd like it to, so for now I will proceed without.
  • Labyrinth of Skophos - Strict upgrade to Maze of Ith, it probably just doesn't tick any of the boxes I'd like it to. I'm assuming it does nothing for attack triggers so it's no good for Eldrazi or Etali, the Primal Storm, and otherwise we can mostly look after ourselves with removal and bodies on the field.



White


Blue


Black


  • Discordant Piper - Doesn't do enough, really. We don't need goats, so....nah.
  • Erebos, Bleak-Hearted - Could be decent draw, reasonable removal too. I don't think it'd be an amazing addition, I think it'd take a little work around to be seamless, but it's an option.
  • Grim Physician - It's not as good as Festering Mummy, which already got cut early in the build so it doesn't get a spot.
  • Mire Triton - A rattlesnake with graveyard synergy, it just doesn't do enough.

Multicolored


Agreed with all of the responses above, there really isn't much for us here, sadly. I think if you were starting a Varina build there's a few pieces that could keep you going, but ultimately for a relatively complete build there isn't anything that makes me question my current build.

Let me know if you have thoughts about any of these, or if you think there's something I've missed!
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Post by Hawk » 4 years ago

Generally agreed - not a lot of zombie love in this set. Oh, that Woe Strider was a zombie instead of a useless horror :(. Only point of discussion is that I am more intrigued by Mire Triton than you - it feeds the 'yard, rattlesnakes early aggression, and almost always attacks profitably and with impunity. That last part is key to me - it is crucial to me in a deck that has both a 4 CMC commander that needs attackers and a ton of 3 CMC lords that we have some cheap drops that can attack with impunity early on. I can appreciate historically when you and I talk that your more reanimator-focused version (compared to my more Aggro-Combo Undead Alchemist version) doesn't appreciate aggression enough to run questionable cards like Mummy Paramount, Changeling Outcast, and Lazotep Reaver, but this one has an EtB that is super relevant to your decks interests. I think it is worth testing.

Also surprised you didn't mention Drag to the Underworld, even to talk about how it was bad - and I do think it is here, where it competes with the staple Swords and Path as well as the Go for the Throat, Snuff Out, and Murderous Cut (you aren't running most of those, mind, and neither am I) it always competes with. I think it is a good spell in mono-black or various Black/Blue aggroy decks, but poor here.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Hawk wrote:
4 years ago
Generally agreed - not a lot of zombie love in this set. Oh, that Woe Strider was a zombie instead of a useless horror :(. Only point of discussion is that I am more intrigued by Mire Triton than you - it feeds the 'yard, rattlesnakes early aggression, and almost always attacks profitably and with impunity. That last part is key to me - it is crucial to me in a deck that has both a 4 CMC commander that needs attackers and a ton of 3 CMC lords that we have some cheap drops that can attack with impunity early on. I can appreciate historically when you and I talk that your more reanimator-focused version (compared to my more Aggro-Combo Undead Alchemist version) doesn't appreciate aggression enough to run questionable cards like Mummy Paramount, Changeling Outcast, and Lazotep Reaver, but this one has an EtB that is super relevant to your decks interests. I think it is worth testing.

Also surprised you didn't mention Drag to the Underworld, even to talk about how it was bad - and I do think it is here, where it competes with the staple Swords and Path as well as the Go for the Throat, Snuff Out, and Murderous Cut (you aren't running most of those, mind, and neither am I) it always competes with. I think it is a good spell in mono-black or various Black/Blue aggroy decks, but poor here.
Yeah, I actually thought the Strider was a zombie, went to write up the set review, and just went '.....oh. Well that's out then'. It's still good, really, and probably could see a place in the format elsewhere (I'm thinking my Yawgmoth deck could use it for instance), but it really needed the right creature type to hit this list.

Mire Triton I don't dislike, there's a couple of things I think could be better though. Firstly, milling right off the top sight unseen is a little suboptimal. It's not the end of the world, but the chances of losing a wipe to the graveyard for good isn't nothing and that annoys me. Preferably I'd like the Entomb effect, as seen (in close comparison anyway) on Corpse Connoisseur. That being said, the major reason I'm not scrambling to drop it into the list is simply that there's nothing I can see in the list that really deserves a cut over it. Apprentice Necromancer has been fairly conditional for me, so it'll probably leave at some point soon, but I still consider it to be better, at least a little, than Triton.

Not gonna lie; the lack of depth for the deck gave me a bit of a bummer, so I probably didn't go as deep on the set dive as I could have. So yeah, for an early iteration of the list Drag to the Underworld could do alright, but you're right, it's up against heavy competition to justify a place once you add in the format staples like Swords, Path, Vindicate variations and such. If as a newer player you didn't own any of those, it'd do ok instead. Otherwise, in general I'm actually really pleased to see a reasonable amount of enchantment and aura recursion, it's something that hasn't really seen a lot of printings, so there's some cool stuff for other builds coming out. I like all of the gods (my favourite of the new is probably Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded) but I think relating back to this list in particular it's just at a point where the things the deck wants are really quite specific, so most new printings just don't fill that gap.

I think the one thing that could potentially be a sleeper is Whirlwind Denial. It'll be a format staple eventually anyway, I just think it depends on the meta. If you have superfriends, Mairsil, Aminatou, Ghave, or any form of storm deck in your meta it'll give you space to take your shot for glory. It's not an answer with complete finality though, so there's times it'll just give you a window to take the game, which makes it something you should consider but not immediately add unless you see it covering lots of bases.
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ChocoDude
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Post by ChocoDude » 4 years ago

Heliod's Intervention vs True Love's Kiss?

Exile - Point for TLK
Cantrip - Point for TLK
Scaleable - Point for HI
Desperation Lifegain - Half-point for HI

I'm going to give HI a try as I like the flexibility. I'm currently running neither as I decided a while ago I'd use counterspells instead, which are less mana-intensive. That being said HI is pretty darn flexible.

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toctheyounger
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

ChocoDude wrote:
4 years ago
Heliod's Intervention vs True Love's Kiss?

Exile - Point for TLK
Cantrip - Point for TLK
Scaleable - Point for HI
Desperation Lifegain - Half-point for HI

I'm going to give HI a try as I like the flexibility. I'm currently running neither as I decided a while ago I'd use counterspells instead, which are less mana-intensive. That being said HI is pretty darn flexible.
You've pretty well summed this up. I like TLK for the cantrip predominantly, although exile is nice in certain cases. I have been eyeing up Intervention though, it's a pretty solid spell. I like the instant, I like the scaling nature of it, I just don't like the lifegain mode. It's pretty underwhelming, but lifegain always is on it's own, even if it is doubled.

I may well pick up a few copies so if there's a spare once I grab my box it could see some use here.
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Post by ChocoDude » 4 years ago

Yeah, I still haven't gotten to try out Intervention, but it doesn't seem like an auto-include in all white decks like some have touted on various MTG websites. And yes, I agree that the lifegain is pretty flimsy. Maybe I should give HI 1.5 points for scalability, and only 0.25 points for the lifegain aspect? :grin:

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