Varina, Lich Queen - Esper Zombie Midrange

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

plaganegra wrote:
2 years ago
Has anyone considered using songs of the damned? Late game huge mana potential, instant, cheap.
All the 1 drop mana spells are pretty playable but I think Songs of the Damned is probably the worst; Dark Ritual Culling the Weak both seem better to me for having early game applications and still being pretty good late game.

That said, Songs is more explosive late game and Varina will almost guarantee it's pretty good in the mid game, so I think it's something that could be worth trying.

I'd try Dark Ritual first since it's the most independently good. I did some goldfishing with it and it leads to some pretty powerful sequences where you turn 3 varina + a 1 mana zombie, but it's high risk high reward :)

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Post by Reya » 2 years ago

plaganegra wrote:
2 years ago
Has anyone considered using songs of the damned? Late game huge mana potential, instant, cheap.
We have access to Cryt of Agadeem

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Post by ChocoDude » 2 years ago

@WizardMN @Nimbaway Thanks Gents. Good hearing from some Katana users. It's closer to even now with a tilt still towards DS mattes. However, thanks for letting me know about the sealable DS inner sleeves fitting in the Katanas. Maybe I will give them a try out then. Cheers!!

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Post by plaganegra » 2 years ago

pokken wrote:
2 years ago
plaganegra wrote:
2 years ago
Has anyone considered using songs of the damned? Late game huge mana potential, instant, cheap.
All the 1 drop mana spells are pretty playable but I think Songs of the Damned is probably the worst; Dark Ritual Culling the Weak both seem better to me for having early game applications and still being pretty good late game.

That said, Songs is more explosive late game and Varina will almost guarantee it's pretty good in the mid game, so I think it's something that could be worth trying.

I'd try Dark Ritual first since it's the most independently good. I did some goldfishing with it and it leads to some pretty powerful sequences where you turn 3 varina + a 1 mana zombie, but it's high risk high reward :)
I wouldnt run a mana spell for the early game. It is too much card disadvantage and the deck is not usually super explosive in the early game anyway. Its not looking to win on T5 or anything like that.

The only reason I would consider a ritual spell is as a late game enabler for a big game winning turn. And in that role I think songs is probably the best and only one that really does that as far as I can tell.

Still probably not worth a slot, but maybe. I was thinking about how much mana it would produce and it would probably net me around 10 black mana on average mid-late game.

Just thinking more about what I would do with all that mana (aside from the obvious game winning sort of things), Being an instant you could keep open one black mana and then EOT before your untap step you could cast this and make a ton of zombies with Varinas ability (which I do often) removing all your unnecessary stuff in the GY.

I am sure there are many more useful things that it can be used for as well. Just putting the card out there
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

Got some gameplay in! Always exciting these days.

Aaaaaand I lost lol. But it was a good game with lots of back and forth, my lines were a lot better, had a couple of trials of new cards and to be fair I was up against Animar, Soul of Elements eldrazi and The Scarab God so those are slightly challenging on two different axes: sharing a tribe makes some of our effects less impactful. and Animar just has an incredible ability to significantly reduce costs and accelerate board states, so outvaluing the deck is a tough proposition.

Essentially I ran out of cards in hand, went into topdeck mode, and couldn't get myself into a win condition, With Animar reducing costs heavily my Rhystic Study wasn't paying out, and I drew into a Patriarch's Bidding early game, and with some gas from Ashnod's Altar had a nice little bleed off with Vengeful Dead, I just couldn't follow up with enough board presence to capitalise.

I got a chance to trial out Empty the Laboratory and had kind of hilarious results. Literally topdecked two tokens for the first two cards off my library in Diregraf Colossus and Death Baron. It seems fine, not always a card to cast, sometimes one to pitch, but with some of the new tech coming in in Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver and Headless Rider I think it's going to be a pretty nice tool to have in the shed myself.

Ravenous Rotbelly I got to try out too, and it's fine, but really needs a way to repeatedly abuse it. Without that, I don't think it's going to be worth hitting any of these variants. I did not have that this game, and being able to trade 3 tokens for 3 eldrazi beaters at end game was nice, it really isn't enough against that sort of deck as a one time effect. I think I will probably drop this one, but, at the same time I do want to get some play in with it alongside a better support network: being able to loop it with Repository Skaab and some reanimation, go ham with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed or just poop tokens with Headless Rider or Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver breaks the parity of it somewhat, so it might be more profitable than my limited experience has led me to believe.

I saw a fair gamut of cards that I want to think about cutting though, so despite the loss it sort of makes it easier to know where to go from here to make the cuts needed for VOW cards (which I've yet to pick up: my LGS is running prereleases this weekend now that covid restrictions have eased a little, so I should be able to pick up the commons and uncommons I need early next week too once people have bought trade fodder in and his storefront is a little more flush).
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Any of you guys tried etchings of the chosen?

Been thinking about it a lot as another sac outlet that protects varina. Or any other random important dude.

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Post by Nikerym » 2 years ago

@pokken I think Etchings is fine card, however paying 1 for a sac is miles apart free sac, also given the nature of the deck, non-creature spells needs to really pull their weight to be considered.

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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

Nikerym wrote:
2 years ago
@pokken I think Etchings is fine card, however paying 1 for a sac is miles apart free sac, also given the nature of the deck, non-creature spells needs to really pull their weight to be considered.
Agreed. My thoughts are that most of the creatures I play i do t care enough if they stay in play. If they're exiled thats a different story but if they hit the yard I'm alright with that. That and the buff from etchings just doesn't add up to enough.
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Post by Falkenbach » 2 years ago

I am running Damnation now as boardwipe. I got a Toxic Deluge and a Vanquish the Horde as alternatives. What would you guys run?
I like the idea of vanquish being only two mana if need to rebuild and if its in the grave with the skaab its still a doable wipe at 6 mana if lets say you fall behind.

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Post by yeti1069 » 2 years ago

Falkenbach wrote:
2 years ago
I am running Damnation now as boardwipe. I got a Toxic Deluge and a Vanquish the Horde as alternatives. What would you guys run?
I like the idea of vanquish being only two mana if need to rebuild and if its in the grave with the skaab its still a doable wipe at 6 mana if lets say you fall behind.
I've found the ability to wipe artifacts and/or enchantments valuable. I'm running Cleansing Nova right now but it should probably be Austere Command.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

If your manabase can support it, Hour of Revelation is the normal first sweeper I'd play, but I think if you need a creature sweeper, it's either Vanquish the Horde or Supreme Verdict depending on how countermagic heavy your meta is.

Devastating Mastery is worth considering too.

This all depends on how heavy you are on artifact/enchantment enablers but usually we just try to put one down and not overcommit.

This is just me but, I would add another Grave Pact effect before I played anything that just did creatures. and I'd give some thought to playing Spellseeker which can find either Cyclonic Rift or Plumb the Forbidden if I was "optimizing." Muddle the Mixture is an OK potential as well since it can find 2 cmc zombie enablers (Wayward Servant et al) and also be a decent bad counterspell.

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Post by Falkenbach » 2 years ago

Well.. that kinda made me see that i have no wipes for artifacts/enchantments anymore..
Might now rather want Austere Command or Hour of Revelation,

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Falkenbach wrote:
2 years ago
Well.. that kinda made me see that i have no wipes for artifacts/enchantments anymore..
Might now rather want Austere Command or Hour of Revelation,
Watch out for that WWW it's a doozy, *most* Varina decks will be so heavily black as to not be able to support it. But it does play really well with the low mana rock strategy since you can play it early on curve an then drop Varina/zombies.

In my build I would play Devastating Mastery before either. Command's inability to kill planeswalkers is a dealbreaker for me.

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Post by WizardMN » 2 years ago

I am currently running Toxic Deluge, Hour of Revelation, and Vanquish the Horde. And I am not completely sold on Vanquish. I think Devastating Mastery likely ends up being the better choice. Being able to deal with everything at 6 mana or giving the player with the worst board position 2 of their things to keep while casting it for 4 isn't bad at all.

But I think Toxic Deluge is huge in this deck and Hour takes care of noncreature stuff. It is important to remember that Living Death is still a sweeper of sorts. Not entirely but it can do good work. But Deluge dealing with Indestructible and only costing 3 pushes it above any other sweepers for me. The life payment can be painful but Varina offsets that reasonably well on her own.

Regarding Austere Command: I don't believe it does enough. We don't really care about our stuff surviving and, generally, even if we did we are willing to sacrifice ours to get rids of our opponents. While there are going to be times where we choose not to destroy Enchantments because of what we have, I think it is more often that we see a situation where we want 3 modes and can't choose them. Or we have to blow up our Enchantments (or whatever) anyway because someone else has the bigger threat. The flexibility is nice but I think it can often backfire where we just can't get rid of enough with it. At one point I think Command might have been right to run, but we have Hour and Mastery as far better options nowadays.
pokken wrote:
2 years ago
Falkenbach wrote:
2 years ago
Well.. that kinda made me see that i have no wipes for artifacts/enchantments anymore..
Might now rather want Austere Command or Hour of Revelation,
Watch out for that WWW it's a doozy, *most* Varina decks will be so heavily black as to not be able to support it. But it does play really well with the low mana rock strategy since you can play it early on curve an then drop Varina/zombies.

In my build I would play Devastating Mastery before either. Command's inability to kill planeswalkers is a dealbreaker for me.
This is an excellent point too. A while back I went through a complete overhaul of my mana base to better support the WWW that Hour requires. Mastery requires WWWW to cast at full cost but only WW if we are willing to give someone stuff to keep (or are just in a pinch and have to). I think they are fairly close but, as mentioned above, I agree that both are far above Command.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

WizardMN wrote:
2 years ago
But I think Toxic Deluge is huge in this deck and Hour takes care of noncreature stuff. It is important to remember that Living Death is still a sweeper of sorts. Not entirely but it can do good work. But Deluge dealing with Indestructible and only costing 3 pushes it above any other sweepers for me. The life payment can be painful but Varina offsets that reasonably well on her own.
You're not the first person to say that -- I am fuzzy on why it's all that good. It's efficient, but it's never a one-sided sweeper pretty much because our dudes are small mostly? It's kinda just goodstuff to me.

I guess Varina's lifegain is kinda useful for counteracting its life cost and it deals with indestructible stuff, but my gut feeling is that we could play something more synergistic or generic by default.

I have Dictate of Erebos in that "creature sweeper flex slot" but I run a lot more sac outlets than most I guess.

I can see why Toxic Deluge would be pretty good but I struggle to want to put *any* symmetrical creature sweepers in Varina. A lot of that might be difference in approach though, I usually want to preserve my board state and sac it for value vs. proactively killing it with my spells.

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Post by Falkenbach » 2 years ago

I overhauled my mana base a bit aswell, I need to be able to have white mana on turn one for Weathered Wayfarer or Land Tax hands, or some of my two drop zombies.
You really need to have a superb mana base for Hour of Revelation to cast it on turn 3 I guess?

Toxic Deluge is great but when you are behind and life total is low, I more than once in other decks couldn't kill opponents leathel creatures on me with Toxic Deluge. Nevertheless its a great board wipe :)

Since the two board wipes Hour and Devastating are rather cheap money wise i might put them on my to buy list. For now i will have to do with Austere.

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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

Huh, I'd somehow missed Devastating Mastery as a viable option. I think I must've seen the give something back option and thought it wasn't worth it. But having to cast again still puts people up against it, so thats not bad, might be worth checking out.

For sweepers in this deck I think for myself I'd like to thin down anyway. I think Damnation is pretty average, and I'd really only pkay it if you have a copy and aren't paying its current price point/have nothing better to fit a slot right now.

I really like the flexibility of Tragic Arrogance. Its not cheap or oriented to our colors, but you get to make all of the choices of what stays and it hits all of the relevant permanent types, so most times its cast you get a favorable board state to compare with everyone else's misery. Plus it gets around indestructible and hexproof. All that said I've not tried it here in Esper, my only experience with it thus far is in Bruna, and granted that is a different shell, where one creature remaining in play can count for a little more than a teeny weeny zombie. It could be average here but it could be pretty back breaking too.

I think most of our builds can afford to go a little lighter on global removal purely for inclusions like Noxious Ghoul and Living Death that take care of troublesome creatures. So in that respect I think I'd be inclined to go lighter on creature wipes and pick up options that either favor us in terms of asymmetry or handle other permanent types. For me I like Winds of Abandon and so something like Mastery or Arrogance. I don't really think we need to go much deeper than that.

As far as Deluge goes it is a bit of a goodstuff add here and I think cutting it is reasonable. There are very few cases its going to be asymmetric and that really pulls away from where it shines, so I think nine times out of ten I'd rather keep my life, pay a little more in mana and have something left over post wipe rather than starting fresh along with everyone else.
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Post by plaganegra » 2 years ago

WWW just seems like an issue so often I personally stay away from anything with that in its cost, having been there done that, and regretted it. Even UU was a challenge and I run more U sources than W sources and have a budgetless manabase running every dual, shock, and fetch except UW duals. IMO everything you can afford to needs to tap for B to be consistent early in the game. Anything that does not tap for B is a cost to the manabase so it has to be worth it (like nykthos for example).

Hour of Revelation stands out to me as a card that will cause more problems in deckbuilding or actual mana sequencing than it solves in actual gameplay. This is the only thing I don't agree with @WizardMN on regarding wipes. But that depends on your playing experience and deckbuilding goals the most I think.

There isn't a clear answer, and luckily we have a bunch of options for wipes in our colors - all the best ones, aside from maybe blasphemous act.

Toxic Deluge is the most efficient board wipe we have access to for its mana value and consistency. If you don't have enough life to use it you probably lose anyway. Varina gains a lot of life. This is the first boardwipe I would include in my deck. Symmetrical Wipes are a safety valve and require timing to use well, it takes a little practice if you aren't used to it, but pretty easy to come out on top. As long as everyone else is losing more than you it is worth it - especially since your stuff comes back and theirs probably wont. Great at leveling the playing field so to me it is an easy include.

I run targeted permanent destruction effects over artifact/enchantment sweepers and have not had a problem with them. It is never all of them I need to destroy or exile - just one or two in a game become problematic, and then I want to be able to cast a spell that doesn't cost me a ton of mana or put too much strain on my manabase/sequencing. Anguished unmaking and friends solve this problem for me personally.

Devastating Mastery seems like the best option if you want to kill all the things. That one I could see myself including, accepting that I will probably always cast it for 2WW

Personally I love winds of abandon. When I have the best board state I can use it on one problem creature, and when I want to kill everyone I can use the asymmetrical effect. Amazing card when used at the right time and the right mode.

Vanquish the horde is often a wrath of God for WW which is as efficient as it gets - I am currently running it, haven't casted it yet, and might swap it out for devastating mastery TBH.
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

I think how hard you want to go on Planar Cleansing effects depends most on how many non-creature enablers you're running and how critical they are to your gameplan. Decks on goodstuff like Rhystic Study may want to err on the side of targeted removal, and me, I'm not really keen on blowing up my Skullclamp or Kindred Discovery.

I have not felt the need to have much of any of it to be honest. Varina has so many ways to go around or over people's random permanent effects. Because I have a pretty combo or near-combo gameplan though I'm opting for more tempo spells like Chain of Vapor (and I'll likely add Fierce Guardianship, Cyclonic Rift and another counterspell Ertai's Meddling, at some point). I'd rather keep 2 mana up and try to tempo them out around countermagic or bounce stuff.

For me, when someone is playing anti-attack hate, I try to drain them, if they're playing grave hate I try to attack them, and that seems to work pretty well. I'm soft to Rest in Peace but that's the name of the game :) I have some countermagic for that and I can also Cosmic Intervention loop around it with Corpse Knight in an absolute pinch.

--

That said, I think it's a perfectly feasible gameplan for some varina shells to take the "I'm not the beatdown" role in some games, and just say okay I am going to wait and sweep before I deploy anything. I'd probably just err on the side of creature and non-permanent spell based card advantage if that's a common thing I think?

And if you are heavy on Planar Cleansing you *definitely* want to be off of mana rocks and onto land based ramp effects.

--

More thoughts:

There's a kinda middle of the road there that wants to just play a bunch of zombies and start the varina train and then be willing to play a symmetrical sweeper, put varina in the bin, and wait for a mass reanimation spell (or hopefully have one). The high tempo symmetrical sweepers like Vanquish the Horde and Toxic Deluge seem good there; ideally you just sweep, then can redeploy some stuff or similar.

I think whether this works well depends a lot on your meta and deck design. I could see it working well if you're not afraid of non-creature permanents putting other people ahead of you post-sweeper--and if you're not afraid of getting absolutely annihilated by a symmetrical reanimation spell.

I've had a lot of situations where I absolutely did not want to sweep pre-massreanimation because of #$&*$@ Dragon Tempest that make me scared of playing symmetrical sweepers. Given the Ur Dragon which is one of my most common opponents runs Patriarch's Bidding and Twilight's Call himself, I usually want to fill my graveyard the old fashioned way then Living Death rather than sweep first.

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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

Agreed, it really does depend how you want to win. I think some thought will always need to be given to breaking symmetry of sweepers anyway, purely because Varina can build back from nothing but it is slow, and, from experience you do end up relying on getting or having specific things to hand to really be in the game. I've always found that the less of your own infrastructure you're taking down the better off you are once the wipe resolves. I guess though this does make a case for things like Teferi's Protection, Cosmic Intervention and Faith's Reward, as well to a lesser degree Sevinne's Reclamation.

I'm personally not as all in on combo as pokken, so my general preference is to either pick and choose with single target removal or to use asymmetrical options. Depending on the match up though I will play a control game and just not deploy as heavily. That definitely gets easier with a lower curve and reactive draw like the fish and the study; you're not losing any advantage for not deploying threats.

All said and done I actually don't think there's a single best answer here. Were in a gray area where were considering mana cost, color cost, asymmetry and tempo all at the same time. Thats going to vary greatly game to game, deck to deck and meta to meta. I think we've hit on most of the best options though. The only thing that hasn't been mentioned in great detail is edict effects which are also an option but probably need a little more care and attention to your build.

Further thought as a possible middle ground - By Invitation Only - what do you guys think of this as a potential leveler? I'm definitely trying it out elsewhere, but there's a possibility it does decent work here too if we can field enough board state to have some presence post resolution. I like that you can scale it to match your plays.
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Post by plaganegra » 2 years ago

By invitation only is an interesting card, I think it is totally playable if you think you will have more creatures on the board than your opponents most of the time, because if you don't, then it is a very expensive wrath of god sort of effect usually. Sacrifice is different than destroy, but not usually.

They will always save their best creatures if they can, and so will you. Its the best and worst part of the card.
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

plaganegra wrote:
2 years ago
Sacrifice is different than destroy, but not usually.
totem armors, straight up indestructible dudes, and Flawless Maneuver common enough that I'd say sacrifice is often much better most of the time. I think if you really want this effect, it's Toxic Deluge and Supreme Verdict and Vanquish the Horde first (pick which work best for your meta)

That said, have any of you guys ever tried Settle the Wreckage?

That card has been utterly frigging insane in Breena, the Demagogue. :)

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Post by plaganegra » 2 years ago

pokken wrote:
2 years ago
plaganegra wrote:
2 years ago
Sacrifice is different than destroy, but not usually.
totem armors, straight up indestructible dudes, and Flawless Maneuver common enough that I'd say sacrifice is often much better most of the time. I think if you really want this effect, it's Toxic Deluge and Supreme Verdict and Vanquish the Horde first (pick which work best for your meta)
Usually, meaning with the exception of the things you listed lol. Usually I don't have to deal with those things in a meaningful way, but sometimes I do. Usually...

Another reason I include toxic deluge in almost every deck that runs black without thinking about it too much.

Winds of Abandon also takes care of all the annoying "destroy" workarounds as well. Usually lol.
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Also: Yawgmoth, Tinybones, Blim, Krenko, Kaalia, Beckett Brass, Chatterfang, Evelyn, Kodama-East, Kozilek, Breya, Morophon, U-Braids, Ashcoat.
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

pokken wrote:
2 years ago
plaganegra wrote:
2 years ago
Sacrifice is different than destroy, but not usually.
totem armors, straight up indestructible dudes, and Flawless Maneuver common enough that I'd say sacrifice is often much better most of the time. I think if you really want this effect, it's Toxic Deluge and Supreme Verdict and Vanquish the Horde first (pick which work best for your meta)

That said, have any of you guys ever tried Settle the Wreckage?

That card has been utterly frigging insane in Breena, the Demagogue. :)
I haven't but I've been tempted. Partly because with enough tokens we can use it on ourselves, still get a Varina trigger and call it a decent ramp spell too.

Offensively though I think it depends on your meta. Combat doesn't come into a lot of metas so it does come with the risk of stagnating in hand.
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
2 years ago
pokken wrote:
2 years ago
Settle the Wreckage
I haven't but I've been tempted. Partly because with enough tokens we can use it on ourselves, still get a Varina trigger and call it a decent ramp spell too.

Offensively though I think it depends on your meta. Combat doesn't come into a lot of metas so it does come with the risk of stagnating in hand.
Yeah I think if your meta is not super chippy I could see it being poor, but I like your idea of settling 5 tokens and ramping 5 for 4 too.

My meta is *extremely* chippy. Everyone is always attacking and half the time I'm reminding them to cos I'm on Breena, the Demagogue

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