Half a year of incremental "but what if I tweak this too" has led to a massive continuous update with about 5 twists and turns, culminating in 28 (!) total roughly 1:1 swaps. The update started when
Ojer Kaslem, Deepest Growth got himself printed and I realised he needs to go in. Above rate stat line, a source of saboteur dig, coming back from the dead, the card felt like one of those modern "powerhouses" I was consciously avoiding but actively tempted me. I put it in and it did fine, and the deck still felt like it was supposed to. As it turns out, the wurmdec spirit is all about punching people with big things, and the modern big things still do that. I properly digested the fact the deck has a very low ceiling - even if using the best fatties in all the land, punching with them fairly is not going to catch up to the level displayed by, say, Ghired. As such, the deck's battle plan was streamlined a little and the gloves came off. Everything remains in service of the stat line - the beef needs to be huge and pressure life totals. Pressuring life totals is a whole different game in a 120 life format than it is in a 20 life format, and the best way to try to go all the way is to aim for creatures that continue scaling as the game progresses. There aren't that many of those, but the ones that do exist have been recruited. Another avenue for success is double strike with its combined protective nature and increased pressure. Additionally,
Soul of the Harvest has been a runaway success with its creature-based draw, which encouraged an increased creature density and pursuit of other creature-minded refuels, both old and new. The deck has three rules - no
Sol Rings, no
Scattershot Archer, no tall draws. The last of those is a little negotiable. I'd like to thank pokken in particular for a number of chats about the deck, leading to the inclusion of
Ilysian Caryatid,
Conclave Sledge-Captain and
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. He may still not be keen on the equipment, but at least now it's better equipment
Midway through the process
Trostani, Three Whispers got revealed and I entertained the thought of switching commanders for an afternoon. The design rhymes with Saryth, but you get white for equipment support and out of the command zone double strike. However, the deck would have to go gigantic on the mana to keep fuelling the abilities, especially if there were to be more than one swinger. Threat of activation is one thing, actually getting value is another. This would also incentivise popping the beef once it gets sauced up, something that Saryth can actually do something about. In the end it was a pretty simple decision to stay on Saryth, the wurmdec was mono green, and a friend was not swayed from
Rosheen when
Magus Lucea Kane got spoiled.
Onward to swaps!
In a vacuum, I don't think I'm building the "correct" Saryth. The "correct" Saryth probably goes for elfball and untaps
Elvish Archdruids and the like en route to your standard elfball win. While I'm not about to ditch my fat for
Priest of Titania, I could make use of some reliable big mana things for untap purposes. The land untappers don't do a lot unless there's an enchanted land around.
Ilysian Caryatid and
Whisperer of the Wilds both need a fat to start tapping for two, making them more consistent if lower ceiling than
Rime Tender and
Sculptor of Winter.
Karametra's Acolyte and
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds both easily offer huge mana on tap, with better returns than the four-drop land auras. True,
Dawn's Reflection and
Market Festival don't die to creature wipes, but stacking a land full of auras comes with its own mild risk of tempting the occasional
Acidic Slime. Plus moving to creatures is a recurring theme of the mega-update, so that fits right in.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is an easy way to get a good untappable land, and is the list's first nonbasic, in over a Forest.
Archdruid's Charm primarily finds the Nykthos if encountered early, but has a bunch of various modes for later. The slot used to be
Spare Dagger, but being able to potentially off a creature for one total mana more at instant speed has major strategic advantages. People don't overcommit blocks, deathtouch trample is a hell of a thing to try to get rid of, so instant shenanigans tend to lead to blowouts more often than not. And the card can also potentially find a creature or pop an artifact/enchantment! The three mana overhead is a bit much for my other, more performant decks, but this list appreciates it. In no small part because of the Nykthos mode. The remaining two-drop land untappers can reach it, so that's nice.
There were further creature conversions. The one-drop auras got replaced entirely - Ojer Kaslem and
Doomskar Warrior further the pursuit of creatures and oust
Keen Sense and
Sixth Sense, while
One with Nature became
Primeval Herald. All three of these are now
Threats Undetected mainstays, with Flip God becoming a major persona non grata and going back into the deck the vast majority of the time.
Rampant Growth grew legs and is
Steve now. 2005 me would understand once I explained the creature-centric refuels, I'd imagine. Like
The Great Henge - that one cares about Steve, but Rampant Growth not so much. While there is a universe in which it contributes less to a game than
Colossal Majesty, that seems very unlikely to happen.
The glut of the swaps are improving the efficiency of beef. I think back fondly to the update where I took out do-nothing seven drops and added
Primalcrux and some of his buddies, that ended up greasing up the deck a bit. As such, I applied similar principles to get the creature suite humming. Costing seven has been known to be a liability for a number of updates now, and every single seven drop in the list gets cut. I have great nostalgic memories of
Penumbra Wurm,
Rootbreaker Wurm and
Thorn Elemental, but they led to mixed feelings in practice as I'd see the art but then wished the card did more as it sat in my hand. I took out Rootbreaker as a feeler, stuck it to the side of the deck in a sleeve and used it as a stand-in token in the event of needing one, and that worked out okay - I'm still getting my trip down memory lane but not at the cost of performance. The other two seven drops become game enders. If coughing up that much mana, may as well get
Giant Adephage and
Primordial Hydra which will eventually solo the table.
Caller of the Pack and
Rampaging Brontodon have good damage output, but not to the same standard. More do-nothing six-drops also got hit -
Honored Hydra is at its best when being discarded, and
Terra Stomper is a decent blob of stats but we can do better. Like
Conclave Sledge-Captain - a
Necropolis Regent-like, with a floor of a six mana 7/7 and a ceiling of revving up other threats on the board into gargantuas that take over the game.
Defiler of Vigor is a pile of efficiency, condemned as such earlier in the thread. It's got good baseline stats, it ramps, it pumps, a very good body. Also it's a wurm, and with
Argothian Wurm being the only other survivor it would be nice if there was even a little typal coverage for the name sake of the deck
Kalonian Hydra is the gold standard of efficiency, an effective five mana 8/8 that then just keeps spiralling. Of note, here it attacks fairly and takes a while to take over the game, while in the aforementioned Ghired comparison it gets copied and just ends the game immediately. See, fair green combat! There is occasional bonus value to be gained with the other hydras as well.
Khalni Hydra may not be quite as impressively discountable as
Ghalta, Primal Hunger, but the creature focus is likely to knock some pips off, and the impressive cost synergises with
Primalcrux and devotion-based ramp.
Majestic Myriarch is a secondary beef, needing something else to come out and have trample to start being a trampler himself, but take that beef and Saryth and you already have a five mana 6/6. Add further beefs/dorks and the stat line will be great value, and he can couple double strike off other equipped creatures too. You have to get creative if you want the keyword in mono green. Other refinements include swapping
Keeper of Fables for
Toski, Bearer of Secrets, and rehoming a recently unemployed
Vigor over
Soul of New Phyrexia. It may well be correct to keep running the Soul, but five mana is a lot of mana. It's the most likely to return of the creature cuts. The two most recent swaps came as I played the deck and saw myself become the increased focus of removal to keep the beef in check. That was flattering, but also means that Saryth taps now need to be managed even more carefully than before.
Spectral Force and
Traxos, Scourge of Kroog become
Battle Mammoth and
Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma. Hey, if you're going to be smart about it and pop my equipment I may as well get a card out of it. Hey, if the board is too contested for a 5/4 to roll in (which it probably won't be, given my track record of connecting with
Soul of the Harvest), I may as well get passive ramp for my fat out of it.
The equipment suite also got streamlined a bit, with the main focus being reaching as much double strike as possible. Which means inserting all two of the playable remaining double strike cards in
Fireshrieker and
Grappling Hook. Just going for it seems largely superior to trying to strip problematic keywords with
Barrow-Blade or first striking in with
Viridian Claw.
Power Fist brings a
Necropolis Regent scaling growth boon to its recipient, and sparks a lot more joy than
Hedron Matrix, especially as the latter has been dwindling in efficiency with the streamlining of the creature suite.
Strength-Testing Hammer is annoying to equip at
3, yet you may find yourself incentivised to juggle it around as further arrivals appear on your field, and then only rewards you with a single card.
Sword of Fire and Ice is more reliable, and not super oppressive in terms of board control as it's the Sword chucking out the shock rather than the creature.
Blade of Selves is an interesting option, with a terrible floor on hydras and legends and a crazy good ceiling on ETBs like the new backup guys,
Primeval Herald and
Verdurous Gearhulk. It went in over
Soul's Might, which is a nice way to sauce up a creature and synergises with other pump, but has the drawbacks of an aura in its single-target commitment and falling outside the deck's main desired card types. There's also the potential Kalonian Hydra synergy. The second most likely card to return from the cuts.
Umezawa's Jitte is a known powerhouse card, and confers a huge degree of control of the board. It has made two showings so far, and it's been instrumental in winning both those games through sheer threat of activation alone (I'm yet to actually take a counter off, believe it or not!).
Colossus Hammer grants a great stat boost, but comes online much later.
While it may have been a little strange to take the glut of the OGs out of the deck (
Argothian Wurm and
Silvos, Rogue Elemental remain - the latter even inspired the choice of
Forest|22021 to go in now that there's no mechanical incentive for snow), it never housed the entirety of what I remember of the 2005 iteration anyway.
Plated Slagwurm and
Symbiotic Wurm come to mind, both lacked trample, so they didn't get drafted. The current token representative arrangement works out fine and the deck slaps just a little bit harder because of it. Auras are probably at an equilibrium, with
Blanchwood Armor being an OG, cheap and very above rate, and
Colossification conferring insane pump at the cost of an untap sink.
Gilanra, Caller of Wirewood is technically a bit worse now as his target density fell from 15 to 13, but he's been perfectly fine in his recent showings. A bit of a rhyme with Selvala, but draws a little more and ramps a lot less.
Belt of Giant Strength had a brief showing in the 99, but didn't really spark joy and got ditched when
Power Fist got made.
Seeker of Skybreak looks kind of eh on paper but plays very well in practice, as it's hard to account for needing to untap guys defensively outside of encountering those scenarios.
The Skullspore Nexus is another avenue for power doubling, may be worth a shot?
Zopandrel, Hunger Dominus is a global stat doubler, but costs seven and doesn't trample.
Joraga Treespeaker is a known good dork, and becomes all the more tempting with the influx of good 5 mana plays and focus on standalone decent dorks. On a tangential note, I can envision myself running
Rishkar's Expertise here, tall draw was powerful when I had it back in the day but it felt a bit awkward to effectively take a turn off to refuel. Given the creature density,
Last March of the Ents would be good. I sometimes find myself outpacing my current refuels so I might try that some time. That, or reinstating
Keeper of Fables and introducing
Ohran Frostfang for more
Coastal Piracy draw. Or
Tribute to the World Tree as it's got lovely
GGG pips and I have a spare from its brief stint in Ghired. There are options if I decide I need them.